MRAs, and manosphere dudes in general, tend to have some strange notions about marriage, many of them believing it to be little more than an elaborate scam, perpetrated by women, to rob men of their money and freedom and even their precious bodily fluids.
Given that they generally see marriage as a tool that women use to pry money from men, MRAs tend to be simply baffled by the very idea of gay marriage, and lesbian marriage in particular – why would any woman want to marry another woman instead of a man whom she could exploit?
Now the right-wing Center for Marriage Policy has put forth a case against gay marriage that’s even more bizarrely conspiracy minded than any MRA screed on the evils of straight marriage.
In a recent post on the Center for Marriage Policy website, the group’s president, David R. Usher, argues that proponents of gay marriage like the National Organization for Women are using the issue as a Trojan horse to promote a new kind of evil he calls “feminist marriage.”
Forget the adjectives “same sex” and “gay” as prepends to marriage. These are victim-based marketing ploys invented by NOW to send us off into a heated debate about homosexuality and equal rights – distracting us from seeing their real goal of establishing “feminist marriage.”
Feminists … intend to convert marriage into a feminist-controlled government enterprise and subordinate the rest of America to fund it.
So what exactly is the strange beast he calls “feminist marriage’?
Feminist marriage is a three-way contract between two women and government. Most women will have children, and few women can afford or will go to the extreme of using artificial insemination to achieve pregnancy. Government is the automatic third party collecting “child support” entitlements for children born in these marriages.
Even non-lesbian ladies will want to get on this gravy train:
Feminist marriage will be far more attractive to women than heterosexual marriage. Sexual orientation does not matter when two women marry and become “married room-mates.” They can still have as many boyfriends as they want and capture the richest ones for baby-daddies by “forgetting” to use their invisible forms of birth control. On average, a feminist marriage will have at least four income sources, two of them tax-free, plus backup welfare entitlements.
Meanwhile, those in traditional man-lady marriages will pay through the nose:
Those in traditional marriages will pay taxes that will be used to support feminist marriages where child support or welfare cannot be recouped, as occurs in our existing welfare state. Traditional marriages have only two income sources, neither of them entitled or tax-free. Over time, many women will prefer “feminist marriage” because of the very substantial economic and sexual liberation advantages. Heterosexual marriage will be heavily burdened by costly marriage penalties, and be comparatively unattractive to women.
But what about dudes who marry each other? Tough luck, fellas!
Marriages between two men are destined to be the “marital underclass.” In most cases, these men will become unconsenting “fathers.” Women in feminist marriages will not mention they are not using birth control. Men in male-male marriages will be forced to pay child support to women in feminist marriages and become economically enslaved to these women.
Apparently, most of the dudes who marry other dudes will not actually be gay.
Most men in these marriages will still have regular sexual encounters with women. Some men in these “marriages” will want to have children. These men will have even more illegitimate children with women in (or contemplating) feminist marriages, most often without informed reproductive consent. Over time, reproductive fraud will become the norm in the United States.
In addition to being so very very evil, feminist marriage is apparently very very complicated.
Women will no doubt enjoy the financial benefits of these new arrangements. But all of us – even the ladies married to other ladies — will pay in the long run when “feminist marriage” ushers in a sort of economic fempocalypse:
Feminist marriage will demolish men’s drive to be successful, motivated workers. It will also further weaken the American job market and harm women’s employment opportunities. Our “Competitiveness Gap” with marriage-based Asian economies will expand as men’s productivity and educational attainment continues to decline, while increasing social problems, violence, and higher taxes stimulate businesses to remove jobs overseas.
Oh, hypothetical women using hypothetical girl-on-girl marriage to extort hypothetical money from hypothetical men, why must you be so hypothetically evil?
Even though the Center for Marriage Policy is little more than a cheerleader for traditional hetero marriage, I wouldn’t be surprised to see marriage-hating MRAs taking up this argument as their own. Politics makes strange bedfellows. As does “feminist marriage,” at least in the fevered imagination of David Usher.
ithiliana:
Right? And think about it, you’d have all this money pouring in, and all you would have to do is feed the kid occasionally, make sure there’s water available, and pick it up if you’re in the mood to cuddle something. Unless I have been misinformed, kids are essentially big hamsters.
I was thinking more of Peter Graves, but at that point all you need really need to do is take It Conquered the World and replace the giant cucumber monster with a giant vagina monster and you’re all set (maybe change the final monologue, scratch that I just listened to it again, it’s MRA gold).
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzcmS2RJj_E&w=420&h=315%5D
It’s too easy that way, I like your idea of using Flint Chesthair; it’ll sell better to a modern audience.
Well actually, you’re EXPECTED to and certainly Obligated to, but as far as *having* to just exactly how is this going to be enforced? There are still far too many selfish single moms who put their own needs before their kids needs and treat those child support payments from dad as free money to spend on themselves. There is always going to be fraud when it comes to entitlements like welfare, SSI, and child support for the simple reason that people will use any excuse they can to get free money.
And furthermore, if 2 women wish to get married in a state that allows gay marriage, do they have to *prove* that they are genuinely homosexual? Marriage is actually more about economics than it is about “twue wuv”. I see no reason why 2 straight ‘girlfriends’ who are non-monogamous room mates couldn’t marry for the economic benefits while maintaining their sexual freedom. And if either of ’em got knocked up by a rich man then YES, they certainly COULD file for child support! Though I don’t see how welfare is involved if at least one of them is employed and making enough money.
yo nameless, they already made that into a movie. it was called ‘i now pronounce you chuck and larry’ and it was about two dudes trying to scam the system and it was about 2 dudes pretending to be gay.
every sane person on the planet thought it was moronic, but if youre idea of high thinking is five year old comedies for teenagers then, congrats i guess?
Because they’re in love?
As opposed to what we have now, which is between a man, a woman, and the government. Gotcha. Because THE Government never gives tax breaks or other benefits to marries hetero couples.
ZOMG!!! It’s like women are able to enter into contracts like consenting adults!
You mean birth control methods that agencies like Center for Marriage Policy fight against women having access to?
So since these taxes already occur in our existing welfare state, they can point them out, right? And the annual costs to traditional married couples, right?
Sorry, my eyes crossed and the rest of the screed ended up sounding like the teachers from Charlie Brown movies. Why must these guys sound so shrill?
O Pretentiously Nameless One, taking care of your children is enforced by the nice social workers who will come by and take your children if you are abusive or neglectful. Admittedly, this method is not perfect, but there are systems in place.
Fun fact: nothing stops a male and female nonmonogamous roommate from getting married to each other. There is no flood of heterosexual pseudomarriages.
Monsieur sans nom, how many welfare mothers are like that? Because all of the single parents I knew were always sacrificing their wants and needs to provide for their children. My anecdata totally trump yours!
Obvious STRAWMAN is obvious. Also, you really need to learn proper punctuation and there is just no excuse for not conflating “your” and “you’re”.
Furthermore, you do realize that in the eyes of this society male homosexuality is a much bigger taboo than female homosexuality?The vast majority of straight women would NEVER even think of having sex with men who they believe to be gay or even bisexual because such men are thought to be AIDS vectors. This is not the case when it comes to straight men and bisexual/lesbian women. There is clearly no incentive for men to this but, surprise surprise, there IS for women! Men and women are different, who’d of ever thought?
its not a strawman, i was just making fun of you for saying something dumb and childish. you’d have to present an actual argument, not some fairy-tale scam you cooked up in your head before i could strawman it.
why is everyone so puzzled about the fact that these dudes dont grasp the concept of love. they spend all day dreaming up new ways to express their hate. why would they understand love?
Monsieur sans Nom: But being married also affects your eligibility for child support. In general, if a divorced woman with a child re-marries, the father can petition for a reduction in (or even elimination of) support payments based on the new household income. Hell, there were sitcom episodes based on that very premise thirty years ago.
So in actuality, a lesbian marriage, particularly between non-romantic partners, would actually DIMINISH their ability to fleece menfolk for more money. They’d be better off living in a world without gay marriage, in fact–they could shack up in a communal environment with some simple contract write-ups to cover the property rights, but without the risk of being found to be in a common-law marriage, which would affect all that free money they’re supposedly getting.
As for women who don’t properly support their kids with those payments, welcome to “Why We Need More Feminism 101”. See, if you get rid of the patriarchal assumption that only the mom should take on the nurturing role, then the father would have an easier time claiming custody rights in the case of a neglectful mom–and then SHE would be on the hook for child-support payments. It happens now, of course, mostly in areas of the country where feminism has taken somewhat stronger root. But it could happen more often if the courts in some parts of the country (particularly the Bible Belt) didn’t automatically assume “Penis = Breadwinner, Vagina = Caregiver”.
Of course, that would also require the father to actually care about the kid, rather than the child support payments (otherwise, he’ll view it as getting saddled with the kid he didn’t want, either, in which case my sympathy for him drops a few thousand percent, and I tend to think that both parents should be required to pay child support payments to the new foster parents, instead). This is not the general attitude taken by the MRA community.
The vast majority of straight women would NEVER even think of having sex with men who they believe to be gay or even bisexual…
And you know this how?
He knows it the same way he knows everything, Dracula, he found it lurking inside his ass and pulled it out.
I’m glad to see the Clueless-man Wormhole opens up to the 80’s and not just 1956.
Pretentiously Nameless One, lesbians are actually less likely to be STI vectors. That’s just biology.
That said, please Google “slash fic” before you make any more overgeneralizations about what women think of gay or bi men.
Why can’t a gay man and a lesbian get married for teh taxes and lulz? Come to that, why can’t a straight man and woman who aren’t in love with each other get married for the taxes and lulz? Why is it suddenly worse if the gender matches?
But hey, you’re right, I probably wouldn’t sleep with a gay man, because I wouldn’t expect him to enjoy it much and I have this weird thing where I want my partner to have a good time in bed. Also I expect he would turn me down if I asked. So… point Nameless? Or half a point, because I would be no more or less inclined to go to bed with a bi guy as a straight one.
Sure it is. You tried to make fun of me because you’re obviously incapable of coming up with a cogent rebuttal and you don’t like what I have to say.
NO U!
Which is worse: sharculese’ punctuation? or her understanding of logic?
That is absolutely, ingeniously, brilliantly, and fantastically…mad. I actually lol’d a little. Maybe someone is a tad insecure? I am a woman and personally would rather marry my boyfriend and fight with him to secure a future (through MY OWN personal job and work) than have a baby daddy…but then again, I might simply be part of the conspiracy to placate the general public. Hmm…we may never know. HAHA.
Your understanding of gender.
“The vast majority of straight women would NEVER even think of having sex with men who they believe to be gay or even bisexual because such men are thought to be AIDS vectors.”
uhhh… okay. And how do we know this?
No, really, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” was a real movie -a terrible movie, but real nonetheless- with a plot all but identical to the scenario you laid out. I think it’s pretty safe, in this instance, to say that Sharculese was just making fun of you.
Oh but seriously, I think being fake-gay-married would be bad for most women. Partly because some of us would actually like to marry someone we love (OMG!!!!!), but partly because most state benefits and I think even child support look at your household income, not your individual income. Two married women would be eligible for less total assistance.
…Then again, if two women can profit by fake-gay-marrying, honestly, I’ve got nothing against that. Any system where being married is more profitable than not is ridiculous enough that I have no qualms about people working it any way they can.
Also my boyfriend’s bisexual and I love sexing him up and he doesn’t have AIDS.
That’s just one data point but I’m just saying.
Not only can they, but this is not uncommon.
Freemage: You do have valid points about child support. A woman looking to fleece men would simply avoid marriage and commitment all together and run around shagging rich men without contraception. MY contention is that the point of 2 straight women marrying each other is not to collect child support from potential baby daddies, but to enjoy the legal and economic benefits of marriage while maintaining their sexual freedom.
My former fiance was bi, so let’s add one more data point there.
I’m still not sure what this even has to do with the OP, since the assertion was that the majority of marriages between men would involve men who also fuck women and thus unwittingly father children. If you acknowledge that many marriages between men would involve men who’re gay, you’re admitting that the OP is talking nonsense.