Quote:Then you are denying polygamists rights. Isn't healthcare one of the main reason homosexuals wish to be "married"?
McG
Let me use your question, though it has a different tact and context, to bring up another way to think about homosexuality, polygamy, gay marriage, etc.
We can gain some objectivity when we conceive or understand these issues as local or cultural taboos.
For 5th century BC Athenians, there was no social taboo associated with homosexuality. For Malaysians and Indonesians, only relatively weak taboos exist, and there, bi-sexuality is not unusual nor particularly frowned upon. Navajos and many Muslim cultures exemplify the opposite - quite severe taboos against homsexuality, and in that latter case, can hold execution as a penalty for violating the taboo.
And of course, within a culture, a particular taboo can change over time from big bad to nuttin much to worry about. In America, interracial marriage is an example of this.
So how we all view homosexuality (or sexual matters generally) is dependent upon what culture and time we happened to be born into. There's a wonderful bit I've mentioned elsewhere from Michener's "Hawaii" where a very severe and rigid Calvinist missionary who was disgusted with the sexual goings-on among the Polynesians was about to post a list of all the sexual partners one was NOT to sleep with. A young Polynesian in training for the ministry advised the missionary that posting such a list was a bad idea because everyone would read it merely with an eye to finding combinations they hadn't yet thought of.
When we think of such matters in this way, one valuable gain is in no small illumination in predicting how the community will likely react when a taboo is pushed. It will react like ours is now.
Some will have a visceral 'yech!' response. Others will see a threat to the entire fabric of the culture and almost certain doom around the corner. The eyes of children will be shielded and they will be herded quickly inside. "Tradition" will be lauded, to the point perhaps of something close to worship.
And none of this will have, necessarily, an objective or rational basis. Again, interracial marriage is a fine example. Or, as a much more trivial example, one 'ought not' to wear a hat in church, at the dinner table, or in school. Ask why not, and the answers certain to attend will be of the "because I said so" or "because it just isn't done" variety.
On the other hand, there might be a truly rational basis for the taboo, or at least we can discern the possibility of that but the events are lost way back in the mist of time, eg, eating pork. In our modern world, this is no longer a health problem, but one can see how it might have been earlier. Yet the taboo remains in force within certain cultures, even when modernized.
Thinking this way about taboos also illuminates another element to the story of homosexuality in America (or Canada).
Taboo and 'profane' are essentially identical. They are really the same concept. And that concept is always held in opposition to 'sacred'. And that goes a lonnnng way to explaining why the religious or faith component in a community will so often fall on the side of 'traditional values'.
