Amanda, you asked if children were ever asked during these studies. Well, I am giving you an invitation to ask away. My mom came out of the closet when I was 9 years old. I am 26 now but grew up in a household with two moms. I can honestly say that I don’t feel like I’m flawed, harmed, or ashamed by my family. I’m also straight and married.

Yes, growing up (and to an extend still today) I was embarrassed about my mom’s sexual orientation. Some of the other commentators hit the nail on the head as to why. It wasn’t because I didn’t like my mom’s choice, her partner, or anything else. It was because of the teasing, ridicule, and outcast treatment that I would receive from other people when they found out about my situation. Whether we like it or not, differences are frowned upon and chastised (especially when through kids or teenagers into the mix). I was a kid growing up in the South in a pre-”Will and Grace” era. There was no one else my situation who could offer my sympathy or compassion. That’s all that I needed though-not a straight mom or a perfect family. I needed and still need people to be understanding, open, and accepting of my family. We’re not perfect, but it works for us.

I’m happy to report that I’ve developed a thicker skin and greater admiration for my mom from everything that we both went through. However, childhood wounds are hard to heal, and I still worry that people will judge me and my family for the choices that we’ve made to be happy. I would still gladly go through everything I went through and still do if it meant that my mom could be happy. Happy people raise happy kids who live happy lives. It’s as simple as that.

Also, have you heard that the majority of voters in California who voted for Prop 8 in California were Black/Hispanic? Why would a bunch of people whose ancestors were enslaved vote for something like that? I think for the same reasons I do, because they believe in something greater.

I’m not opposed to homosexual civil unions. I’m opposed to gay marriage.

I don’t care what your religious views are. Your religion has no right to dictate who can be awarded a CIVIL union. And to those people who say ‘how long would it be before they start forcing churches to honor same sex marriages?’ – your response is just as uneducated and ridiculous as those running around saying that you can get swine flu from eating bacon.

Do your research. Churches can still refuse to marry straight couples, and many do. Ie many catholic priests still refuse to marry couples that have ‘co-habitated’ before marriage. Straight marriage is completely legal, and the government doesn’t step in here. Why would they with same sex marriage?

grr.

I think the key miscommunication between our comments is around three ideas:
1. Whether same-sex attraction is a choice
2. Whether acting on that attraction sexually is a sin
3. Whether we should legalize same-sex marriage

Now, these three ideas are disjoint – you can hold any view on any of them without affecting the others. Since I am a devout Mormon, I think your assumption about #2 (sin) was warranted and correct. I was frustrated about your assumption about #1 (choice), because it wasn’t my opinion (and to my knowledge is not the stand of the LDS church), and it was the foundation of your comment. I was also frustrated about your assumption that #2 (sin) dictates #3 (law), which to me it doesn’t. I believe many things are sins and I don’t do them, but I don’t promote legislation to ban them (e.g. pre-marital sex), which is what the LDS church does as well. In all instances I have seen, the church has good arguments for taking a legislative stand, not merely a belief that something is sinful.

So, I also appreciate the conversation, and if you disagree with me on anything, I do welcome discussion – I really have learned quite a bit through the comments on this post.

I’m confused about your first point where not recognizing marriage at a federal level would make subsidies a non-issue. The only thing that would do is make moving from state to state a non-issue (whether you’re married or in a civil union, you’d keep your status). Not sure how that would change anything about the subsidies, but please elaborate if I’m missing your point.

On your second point (if you remove religion from legislation how would anyone be hurt by gay marriage), I think the points brought up here are the exact same as with polygamy – that it’s detrimental to society. However, a lot of the specific points in that argument don’t really address gay marriage but rather things already granted by civil unions. So to me personally, the tax burden is really the major way others would get hurt, although I’m not very well versed in this debate so it’s quite possible there are other potential points.

The point about removing kids from the shelter system is a good one, and I think the issue here is that we should give tax breaks to people who actually adopt those kids. My opinion, and it’s just an opinion, is that kids put with stable same-sex couples and single individuals are probably better off than the kids the shelter. Therefore, I absolutely think they should get tax breaks for the savings they just gave to the shelter system. But this shouldn’t depend on whether they are gay couples that are married, gay couples in civil unions, or single people.

As far as immigration goes, I thought a lot about it, and my opinion is similar if not the same as yours. I agree that people should be able to apply for immigration for their partners if they want to spend the rest of their life with them and are willing to support them financially if needs be. I think this also applies to polygamous marriages from places where those are still practiced (if you are from a largely Moslem nation and want to immigrate, you shouldn’t have to decide which spouse and kids you’re going to leave behind). Historically, marriage has always been the best proxy for this and federal law relied on it because all states recognized marriage as the same thing. Universally allowing gay and polygamous marriage would be an easy way to solve this problem, but it has a multiple other consequences. The problem could also be solved by a change in federal law that defines a domestic partnership at the federal level and grants it immigration rights equal to marriages.

On your final point of tax breaks for marriages and Mormons encouraging marriage: the big question here is whether marriages actually deserve their tax breaks (i.e. do the benefits to society outweigh the increased costs to the non-marrieds). If so, then Mormons are doing society a favor by promoting marriage and families. If not, then the increased burden on others is not justified and the tax breaks should be decreased. I think most people operate under the assumption that it’s deserved, because Washington is usually pretty good at squeezing as much as possible out of us : )

Taking all these points together, I think there are good arguments both for and against redefining marriage. My bias is that we should do our due diligence before we make a large change like this, which is why I appreciate this discussion.

Just out of curiosity, since he is such a dear friend, does it bother you both at all that he can’t enjoy married life like you?

I can’t say that I agree with your views, but I applaud you for be brave enough to put your opinions out there.

Coming from such a conservative background/environment, the thought that I might be faced with such a request had never crossed my mind. I believe that most same-sex couples do their research before choosing a photographer, because same-sex marriage is such a hot button topic I believe they want to choose a photographer who is supportive of that right. Photographers who put up pictures of same-sex couples on their blogs become recognized as someone who would be good to contact in the event that you were looking for such a service.

I think there are two different possible situations.

The first is that someone contacts me to set up an engagement session, never mentioning that they are in a homosexual relationship. I show up to meet them and because I am a professional (I would like to believe I am), I treat them no different than any other couple I work with. I do my best to capture photographs that they will love. The one thing I would do differently, is I would not make their images public. I would make this choice because I think it is important to display images that project the kind of sessions you would like to focus on, and I am not looking to break into the same-sex market. Right now I am not making any money, so I’ll take pictures of pretty much anything you want to pay me for, but in the future I plan on focusing in on a specific target market. Thus, this policy of not putting up certain pictures on the blog would not only apply to same-sex couples, but pets, or babies, or family sessions, whatever type of session might be different from my target market.

The other situation I can imagine is that the person who emails me mentions that they are in a same-sex relationship, and ask the question that you asked above. I would email them back, and let them know I do not have a policy against doing such sessions, but I be honest with them and tell them that I think there are photographers out there who would be a better fit for them. Because I truly believe that it is not only important to find a photographer who is good, but most importantly someone who is good for you specifically.

Overall I think it is highly unlikes that either situation would occur. The majority of my clients know about my personal blog, and I am very open about my conservative Christian belief system. Once you know I am Mormon, it can only be assumed that I am opposed to same-sex marriage, as most Mormons are. Understandably, those who are in homosexual relationships are highly offended by this stance, and usually do not want to have any association with me whatsoever. I do not think it is something I will be facing anytime soon, especially while living in Texas. Thank you for giving me the chance to think about what I would do in such a situation though, it may come in handy in the future.

All of your other points are very valid though.

In the 1970’s, the top experts and scientists of the day predicted-among other things that I can’t remember right now – that:
*the Earth would be around 10 degrees cooler in the year 2000
*more than half of the species on earth would be completely extinct by the 1990’s
*and life expectancy would be around 42 years of age in 1995

(I could post the links, but I’m just too tired – forgive me and I’ll get them some other time if you wish)

When it comes to projecting ideas about something so vast as our entire world and it’s future capabilities….yeah, scientists are often quite off and they don’t all agree. Ironically, you have except what science projects with quite a bit of “faith”!

For instance, some modern feminist ideas are quite different from the early feminists ideas – modern feminists have gravitated away from some ideals upheld by early pioneers in that movement (acceptance of abortion for one). Those considered “liberal”100-150 years ago for their ideas would not in many cases be considered liberal now. With each passing generation, acceptance of behaviors and what is considered “good” and what is “bad” gets slightly changed in some cases – dramatically changed in others.

Some of these things are relatively minor (people dressing up to fly on airplanes 50 years ago versus the pajama/comfy preference found today) to things that some consider more major (the acceptance & lessening stigma of premarital sex when compared to previous generations).

Basically, good luck finding someone to objectively answer questions related to our modern views on past events – especially those events involving more than one group of people! (just food for thought!)

I’m curious to know: Do you (or do you plan to) photograph same-sex couples?

I would love to hear if anyone comes up with an example for Sophia.

Also, your clarification that you agree with civil unions clears a lot of things up for me as to your stance. I’m not one of those people who insists it be called marriage- if civil unions give gay couples all the same rights and protections under the law as married heterosexual couples get, I’m happy.

Honestly, my comment was more of a kind of realization thing happening in my mind, of thinking “you know, maybe it’s not that people disagree on gay marriage, it’s that they disagree about what being gay is or isn’t”. My only point in even addressing the issue of what being gay is was to try and wrap my mind around that sticky point where people on one side feel the other side is being discriminatory. It wasn’t in a mean tone, more of a “hey, maybe this is where the issue is, other than over here”, me trying to better understand.

The state law differences (civil unions not being recognized) is a good point. In my understanding there is a federal law that would cause the same problem for same-sex marriage (it may not be universally recognized across states, depending on state laws). Thus, we will probably face this problem wherever the debate ends up (unless all states recognize civil unions or same-sex marriage).

The immigration point is a very interesting one. What’s your point of view on it? I haven’t ever thought about this one, so I’ll elaborate tomorrow…

Now, before comment on your point let me give the opinions I actually hold. From all the research I’ve done through the years, I think homosexuality among men is largely hard-wired. There are exceptions, but they are just that: exceptions. I’ve met enough men who wanted to be heterosexual but couldn’t, and I don’t think I could ever be homosexual no matter how much I’d want to be. Homosexuality among women can be hard-wired and it can be a preference. I haven’t seen any studies on what the ratios are, but my understanding is that the deeper emotional connection that women can develop can lead a woman to prefer homosexual unions over heterosexual unions. This helps explain the much larger bi-sexual percentage of women vs. men. But not to digress too much, I think most homosexuals have as much a choice about their sexuality as I have about mine – i.e., not much.

Now that that’s established, whether I believe that homosexuality is a sin or not is actually a moot point and, whether you believe it or not, it has no bearing on my views. I believe that sex outside of marriage is a sin, but I never thought any less of my many friends who choose to have pre-marital sex than I otherwise would have. I vehemently agree that we should not make laws based on what we deem as sinful, because these views are subjective and discriminatory. Fundamentally, religious beliefs and emotion is not what this discussion is about for me.

Now to speak to your actual point, homosexuality being a choice has no bearing on my arguments (to me they are not stronger or weaker either way). To walk through them:
1. Potential detriment to society – doesn’t matter. The issue here is whether gay marriage benefits society at large.
2. Federal subsidies – doesnt matter. The issue here is whether gay marriage is beneficial enough to society to warrant tax breaks at the expense of everyone else.
3. Burden of proof – doesnt matter. The issue here is whether the burden of proof is on those seeking to change the status quo or those seeking to maintain it. It could be argued that for point #1 the burden of proof is on society, but for point #2 the burden of proof is clearly on same-sex couples.

If you speak about the last paragraph – how having a rational and well-developed opinion on an issue doesn’t make one a bigot – I also think choice doesn’t make a difference. I’m going to beat it to death, but nobody chooses where they’re born, and yet we don’t give everyone a chance to live in the great US of A. Bigots or not, we don’t do it because we think it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of society, and we don’t see it as a fundamental right. Which brings me to my last point…

I think the comparisons of gay marriage to women’s right to vote and slavery are extreme and inaccurate. As I’ve said before, marriage is society’s recognition of a union. Unions can exist without marriage, and forming those unions is what I would call a right. As for society’s recognition, society has to decide.
If society decides against, are rights actually lost from same-sex couples if they are not able to marry?

In my understanding, there are only two, and neither of them are actual rights. (1) The right to be called a marriage and (2) the right to federal subsidies in form of income and estate taxes. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge everything else is given through civil unions, like adoption, power of attorney over the disabled, etc. Now, are those actual rights? In my understanding, nobody has a “right” to be called anything by others (like not being called a bigot isn’t my actual legal right), and nobody has a “right” to tax breaks unless society so decides (if there is such a right, I would certainly love to get some more tax breaks myself). If I missed an actual right (which is quite possible), a good way to address it would be to grant it through civil unions, as indiscriminately broadening marriage actually robs society of its right to decision in a democratic process.

I hope that’s not too long of an answer. I also hope my tone didn’t come off as negative, because that’s not how I mean it. Being honest, I have not been frustrated at any argument that proves me wrong in this debate – in fact, there have been several comments on this post that helped me refine my views. If you think my logic is flawed please do comment back, because I appreciate the conversation.