The three basic questions of the same sex marriage issue are: "Why does humanity have homosexuals?", "Why is the concept so scary to so many people?" and "What is a marriage?"
Over the years I've read now and again about homosexuality, and I did some refreshing for this article by reviewing the Wikipedia section on it. It appears homosexuality has been around since prehistoric times in humans, and it is widespread in other animals. This says to me that Mother Nature has found the feel-good thinking associated with sex to be valuable to apply to other circumstances. In other words, we have homosexuality because somehow it helps human survival, and somehow it helps other animals survive as well.
This certainly seems like a contradiction at first. If sex is about procreating, then how can non-procreating sex be a benefit? The answer is that it becomes valuable when Mother Nature finds sex thinking can be quickly adapted to other uses beside procreating. Modifying it slightly can provide quick and dirty solutions to other problems that humans and animals face in their day-to-day surviving on earth. It is useful thinking when it can be used to get animals who would normally fight or be indifferent to each other to think and act in cooperative ways. If this cooperation has strong benefits that have nothing to do with sex, then homosexuality becomes a successful thinking style. Another way of saying this is that there are other times besides procreation in the lives of humans and animals when close contact and cooperation are valuable to survival, and helping that happen with some feel-good sex becomes a successful way of thinking. And that's why humans experience homosexuality as well as heterosexuality. In simplest terms: we have it because it works to help the survival of the species.
That brings us to the next question: Why is it so scary to many people? There is no question that watching people show homosexual affection is deeply unpleasant to some people. As we seek an answer to that, it should be noted that displaying heterosexual affection is also uncomfortable for some people to watch. "PDA" -- public display of affection -- is something many people are cautioned against. And, related, dressing inappropriately is censured enough that even these days people can get tossed in jail doing for it. Clearly sexual displays of all sorts are linked to powerful emotional thinking, and for that reason are thought to clearly fall in the domain of community interest -- every community the world over feels very justified in prescribing right and wrong sexual displays, and once again all have felt justified in doing so since prehistoric times.
So... what has changed that is bringing this question to the forefront now? Why is gay marriage an issue of the 2010's?
Before I answer that, let me talk about the third question: What is marriage? Our emotional feeling is that marriage is an unchanging institution -- two people fall in love, get married, and raise children. In reality, the marriage institution evolves as steadily as language, and that evolves a lot... although, once again, we usually think of language as unchanging. Here is a famous example of language change: These days we no longer say "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" as we did four hundred years ago, we say, "Romeo, Romeo, why are you Romeo?"
Language changes steadily with time, and likewise marriage changes steadily with time. In Juliet's day marriage was a contract between families as much as it was between two people. Marriage was arranged, and arranged to benefit whole families, and the play was romantic crazy talk in its day. Nowadays the marriage contract is just between two parties, and love can be at the center of the relation... it's quite different.
What has been constant throughout the ages is that marriage carries a lot of financial baggage with it. In Juliet's day there were dowries and family obligations, and these days there are employment, insurance, tax, and many other kinds of benefits attached to marriage. They aren't talked about explicitly in writings about this controversy, but its the benefits that are powering much of today's controversy.
And, in fact, this lack of willingness to talk about finances may be why this controversy rages. The pro same-sex advocates see a lot of financial benefits that they otherwise can't access, while the anti same-sex advocates see the defiling of a religiously sacred institution... it's an apples-to-oranges comparison problem, and this is why it's not solving quickly or easily.
My feelings on the matter:
o For years I have wondered why homosexuality has endured even though it has been roundly censured by mainstream writers from The Bible on down to modern times, and by the communities they have been representing. The "Ah-Hah!" came when I read that homosexuality also happens in other animal species. This said to me "It's there for a reason. It's helping survival, and it's not some human-specific thinking aberration." The question then became, "OK... What's it's survival advantage?" The answer to that will become clearer with time. But the core advantage seems to be it's another way of promoting cooperation.
o So if it has value, why is it so discriminated against? And... why is it so scary?
Sex thinking of all sorts wires into parts of the brain connected with deep emotional feelings. (Which parts those are haven't been well determined, but the older term Limbic System was thought to cover those parts.) These same parts think about pain, pleasure and fear. We enjoy it when the pleasure parts of the brain are stimulated by a sex display. This is why many people enjoy romantic scenes in movies.
But people see sex displays differently. One classic example of this difference is young boys watching a romantic scene and saying, "Ewww! This is the mushy stuff. Let's watch something else." Older watchers hear that and they think it's cute because they know that attitude will change in a couple years. But, the fact is, at that time, the kids complaining aren't enjoying it! And the feeling is strong enough that they are complaining. This is an example of two people seeing the same sex display and getting entirely different thoughts from it.
And this difference in thinking about sex displays is pervasive -- beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But a common thread to all thinking about sex displays is, pleasurable or scary, the feeling is strong!
Homosexual displays seem to come out on the scary side a lot more often than on the pleasurable side, and that's why the practice has been condemned and strongly discriminated against throughout the ages.
Should homosexual displays now be tolerated? ...We live in a prosperous society. This means we can afford to indulge in a lot of things that were previously too expensive. I think tolerance of homosexuality falls in this category. I'm not an enthusiastic gay rights enthusiast, but I do think that discrimination and violence against the GLBT community is not good. It damages all of us. These people should be treated as equals, as we all should. This gives us all greater freedom, and that's a very good thing.
But, let me extend this platitude about freedom a bit further. We should not be legislating morality. What this means to me is we should not have hate crime laws, instead we should become even-handed in enforcing basic laws about violence, and diligent about teaching tolerance. We should be vigilant about protecting free speech, and not be thin-skinned sissies who feel they are suffering damage when they hear "bad" words.
Should we permit gay marriage? Here I think a compromise is in order. I think we need a "gay marriage" of some sort -- a civil union, if that term weren't already taken. I think we also need a new term for marriage that encompasses both a traditional heterosexual marriage and the new gay civil union, and that new term should be what is referenced in all marriage contract law. This is much like adding the new term "Ms" to our titles for women, and accomplishes the same task -- recognizing that times and relations have changed -- but does so without scraping across all that raw moral feeling about what that traditional word "marriage" should define. Perhaps the term Civil Coupling would be a good one... at least until polygamists successfully demand their equality as well.
So, yes, gays should be able to marry, but it should be called something different, and in marriage contract law we have now should use the new term that encompasses both straight marriages and gay civil unions instead of the old term marriage.
... Separate but equal. This may be a time for that famous phrase to work.