Erickson, Sullivan, and what "bigots" deserve

Same-sex marriage is susceptible to a similar analysis. Because of a situation in our extended family, my children became aware of a man who wanted to be with other men instead of women. They simply did not understand why a man would want to share romantic love with another man. The idea violated their concept of what a man is. A man shares romantic/marital love with women rather than men. I learned this about their reasoning before I ever tried to explain things to them or to help them understand it. Just as a child’s natural understanding tilts away from racism, I would suggest that it tilts toward a complementary view of the sexes. In other words, men go with women and women go with men. Just as bigotry must be cultivated, so, too, must the appreciation of same sex pairings. In other words, bigotry is the result of intentional cultural work and so is the appreciation of same sex pairs. Neither is a natural understanding from the child’s point of view. (Please understand that I am not morally equating bigotry with cultural advocacy of gay acceptance. That is not the point.)

In the case of racism, we would see the culture’s work in the child to be pernicious. Creating an awareness of racial difference is not a good thing. The question, then, is whether the culture’s current work to change the understanding of marriage is good. I would suggest that the answer is not as obvious as it appears to have suddenly become. Is it really so difficult to understand the people who do not think that it is? Is it necessary to demonize them as “fundamentalists and bigots,” especially when their view was uncontroversial as little as ten years ago? The physical complementarity of men and women is powerfully suggestive to the ordinary conscience, is it not? And yes, religious understandings run in that direction, too. God is the designer. People infer intent from the complementary design of men and women. The underlying point here, though, is that the perception of same sex marriage as something that is improper is not only religious in nature, it is intuitive and has been for thousands of years.