What non-religious arguments, if any, are used against LGBT rights in general and marriage equality in particular?

Question

It appears to me that opposition to marriage equality comes primarily from religious groups, in particular from the Abrahamic religions. Quoting Wikipedia:

Many forms of religions, including the Eastern faiths and Abrahamic faiths, do not support homosexual sex. Evangelical Christianity,[10] Catholicism,[11] Mormonism,[12] Orthodox Judaism,[13] and Islam,[14] hold the view that homosexual sex is a sin and that its practice and acceptance in society weakens moral standards and undermines the family.

The Wikipedia article doesn't expand much on non-religious opposition to same-sex marriage. It appears most countries with strong anti-LGBT laws are countries with a dominant Muslim or Christian population (red shades on this map from Wikipedia), although attitudes within religion-dominated countries differ significantly (primarily catholic Spain has legalised gay marriage and 82% believes LGBT should be accepted, but in majority Hindu India this figure is only 10%). On the legal side:

Apart from arguments originating from the (Abrahamanic) old testament, what sources exist for opposition to marriage equality?

Answer 1

1. First of all, in practice, the answer is 100% yes, since there existed numerous strong examples of either atheist, or non-Abrahamic religious societies antagonistic to homosexuals.

   • USSR was 100% atheistic. LGBT in USSR starting with Stalin was punished significantly more harshly than in the evil-anti-gay-theocracy-USA (even at the beginning of the century, before gay rights movements in US). No gay in USA was ever sent to labor camps (nor, as far as I know, been convicted to lengthy prison sentence), both of which was the norm in USSR.

   • Similarly, atheist Castro Cuba literally put gays in labor camps (again, nothing even remotely as bad ever happened in USA).

   • Both Mayans and ancient Greeks were not very positive about homosexual relations outside pederasty - e.g., penetration of an older male was NOT positively viewed. Same was true for the Norse. Same with Ancient Egypt.

   • Aztecs were not very good to homosexuals, especially bottoms (evidence from Bernal Diaz, we don't really have much good primary sources on Mexica Empire sadly).

   • In North Korea, marriage is only between a man and a woman, and homosexuality isn't very well thought of (though AFAIK not directly criminalized).

   • In India, strongly religious people/authorities oppose same sex marriage (src)

   • Jainism is a lot more liberal on LGBT attitudes, but definitely NOT what you'd call "equality", and the views espoused in it would get any conservative in USA labeled as "homophobic bigot". (src)

   • Zoroastrianism has a negative view (src)

   • Nazi Germany put gays in concentration camps. This may be argued to being an artifact of German Christian values, so let's call it a "maybe", unlike the previous ones.

   • Zimbabwe's Mugabe explicitly claimed that original inhabitants of the country (before Abrahamic religions) didn't practice homosexuality. I won't take that as scientific evidence, but worth noting if you are careful to be skeptical.

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2. As far as non-religious arguments against "LGBT rights" in general (NON-marriage):

   • A LOT of the arguments stem from the social/cultural view that a proper adult man should not be receiving sexual penetration (see the list of non-Abrahamic countries above). This is especially proven in cases where pederasty was considered proper.

   • Some of the modern arguments in socialist dictatorships were based on the fact that homosexuality is "western/capitalist deviancy" (which is big news to all the Marxist/Gramscian leftist LGBT rights activists in Western countries). See North Korea, or USSR (USSR was slightly more complicated, but North Korea it's open and shut case of this attitude).

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3. Non-religious arguments against "LGBT rights" groups (NON-marriage-related):

   Please note that some of the arguments are more about "for negative view of LGBT rights activism" and less about "arguments against LGBT rights" per se. In other words, someone may oppose groups/actions of rights activists, yet outside of that opposition, personally thinks that gays and lesbians should not be discriminated against and does not discriminate against them, at least outside of marriage stuff.

   • Some people of right/libertarian orientation in the west dislike LGBT activists specifically for their super-strong Marxist/Gramscian and statist/big-government leanings (or for some right wingers, for anti-traditionalist and anti-American views that have nothing to do with homosexuality). This is evidenced by popularity of "Conservative Lesbian" blog (_{note: she was an official blogger for CPAC'2010, sponsored by redstate.com, and a personal friend of Andrew Breitbart. Not exactly a non-entity on the right, in other words}), and good opinions of GOProud.

   • As a 2018 update, this is extremely well evidenced by extreme popularity on the right/libertarian side of openly homosexual libertarian Dave Rubin (who mentions "his husband" and his sexual orientation on nearly every podcast I heard), or alt-right figure Milo Yannopolis (sp?). Basically, an extremely large chunk of modern US right wing doesn't care who or what you do in the bedroom, as long as you hold political positions/views they agree with.

     This is especially prevalent on libertarian side, where people in general tend to have absolutely no anti-LGBT beef on "moral" grounds.

   • Some arguments are based on general dislike for open and flaunted sexuality (which LGBTs tend to be reputed to have, whether accurately or not isn't very relevant). This seems to be the case around China, where many attitudes are less about "homosexuality bad" as in "dial down sexual display, all'y'all" - see Confucianism section of Wiki article about religions and homosexuality linked above.

     This is important since it's also a basis of dislike by some people in Western societies - I am personally aware of many people whose attitude is "I don't care who someone has sex with, but I don't want them sticking their sexuality in my face, gay or straight" - such people tend to view Gay Pride parades in San Francisco with just as much distaste as Mardi Gras or Rio Carnivals. Again, in this case the special LGBT dislike is more about (true or false, doesn't matter) perceived tendency by LGBT crowd - at least in the West - to flaunt their sexuality more than straights, and not to the homosexuality itself. Such people would very happily be friends/coworkers with someone who is gay in private.

     Please note that this one doesn't strictly speaking belong on this list at all - people holding this view tend to completely lose their interest in someone's sex orientation as far as all normal rights are concerned. They EQUALLY don't want to know that you're gay, OR that you're straight, especially around their kids.

   • Related to the last point, some people strongly oppose to homosexuality being taught about in school to young kids. NOT because it's homosexuality, but because sexuality is being taught in the first place (I'm talking 6 year olds here). A lot of them - again may be rightly or wrongly - see that as a result of LGBT pushing.

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4. Opposition to same sex marriage, independent of child rearing.

• First, tons of libertarians are against ANY marriage recognition/special treatment by the state, unless it relates to child rearing. Same sex or hetero sex.

• Second, some people view the drive to legalize gay marriage as an assault on "traditional" cultural values. In other words, they are perfectly fine with same sex civil unions, but not with calling them "marriage", thereby redefining what "marriage" always meant (yes, many of them come at it from Christian religious background, but not all).

  Incidentally, many of them are from the same set of people who oppose LGBT activists as left wing actors. In other words, they view the drive for same sex marriage as less of "for the equality" and more for "let's stick it to those right winger traditions", and react defensively based on that perception (again, the proof is in the pudding. Many of them are a lot more receptive/less resistant to the same ideas coming out of GOProud and such).

  Another large factor here is simply the fact that same sex marriage was a branding topic - it simply evolved as a point of contention between conservatives and progressives, and polarized to the point where people would espouse views on the topic merely because their tribe's prevailing views were so (this is clearly evidenced by research done by social psychologists, who managed to convince people to switch LGBTQ viewpoints after in-person interviews - abstractly held political bumper sticker talking point doesn't always survive contact with real live human beings).

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5. Opposition to same sex marriage as a vehicle of child rearing.

• This is different than general LGBT rights. One of the arguments that are very specific to child rearing in marriage is a concern that on average, children NOT raised by a male and female parent are not being provided with a correct upbringing. (very very simplified version of one such argument would be that a girl raised by women would never learn to relate to men correctly relationship-wise; same with a boy raised without a woman. Similar concerns about a girl being raised without a woman figure in a family of 2 fathers, or a boy with only women parents - they lack a proper figure for emulation).

• A separate version of this argument is conservative/evolutionary-psychology type. Basically, if children being raised in a same sex couple household would NOT somehow be a long term problem, then nearly-100%-heterosexual-family-model-acceptance would not have evolved. They don't know for sure WHAT the problem may be, but they view the fact that almost every single culture on Earth didn't have same sex child rearing as proof that there is SOME problem, from evolutionary perspective.

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6. Opposition to the claim that "marriage equality" includes same-sex marriage.

   Having re-read the question, I noticed that it was phrased in a leading way that is rejected by many opponents of same-sex marriage - they specifically reject the claim that "marriage equality" includes same-sex marriage; and that refusal to recognize same-sex marriage constitutes "unequal treatment". Obviously, this is no longer a view shared by US SCOTUS, but nevertheless, a lot of people object based on this line of reasoning. The general arguments go as follows:

   1. Homosexuals are not being denied the right to marry in general. Merely the right to marry specific subset of people. They very specifically can marry anyone of opposite sex; thus have same rights heterosexuals do.

   2. The concept of restricting a set of people one can marry DOES exist in the law: you cannot marry a close relative, you cannot marry more than one person, you cannot marry someone underage, you cannot marry someone not alive/not human, etc... Therefore, US law does NOT recognize universal right to marry anyone you like. The only meaningful legal difference seems to be that homosexuals have far more political power and influence than poly-amorous people or those wishing to marry their sibling/parent.

      (which is where we circle back to above-mentioned libertarian notion that the state shouldn't even be in the business of recognizing or not marriages).

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Please note that I'm listing the arguments as they exist - whether any of them are valid or not is irrelevant to the question. If you care about its correctness, ask on Skeptics.SE :)

Answer 2

Arguments against homosexuality

There are four main arguments against homosexuality.

• Homosexuality catalyzes spread of HIV and other sexual deceases. It was cited for example as one of the main reasons why homosexualism was prohibited in the late USSR. There are two reasons why it is so

  • Homosexual acts usually involve anal penetration, which involves more tension and the rectum skin less prone to mechanical damage. This often leads to micro abrasions through which the infection can pass. This is especially important for HIV.

  • Heterosexual contacts employ various natural protection mechanisms which homosexual intercourse lacks. One of them is that the medium in male and female sexual organs have opposite properties: the medium in vagina is acidic while the medium in penis is alkaline. This makes it difficult for infection adapted for male organs to invade female ones and vice versa.

• Homosexuality leads to depopulation of the host nation and degradation of culture. This argument is often used by various nationalists, racists and racialists and also by Men's Rights movements. It was also expressed by Putin when he spoke about new Russian law against homosexual propaganda. The main idea behind this is that homosexuality is the most widespread among the segments of the population in which the instincts are the less prominent (such people are called "low-primative" following Protopopov and Novoselov). But at the same time, the low-primative people constitute the core of civilization, being the drivers of science and scientific progress. Homosexuality limits the spread of low-primative genes leading to the rise of the primativity of the population. Less primative ethnicieties are replaced with more primative, the intellectual elites are replaced with the social bottoms (whose activity is determined by the instincts and as such they are not involved in homosexuality).

  This, accompanied with other feminist innovations targeting low-primative men such as unbearable financial sanctions imposed on financially successful men for having many children, destruction of the marriage, harassment laws etc leads to the cease of reproduction of the intellectual elite, destruction of culture and eventually collapse of the nation.

• Homosexuality increases sexual disbalance. In any society there is excess of sexually active men on the sexual market compared to sexually active women. This has multiple causes

  • The duration through which an average man and average woman participate in the sexual market is about twice greater for men. Men usually participate in sexual market from the age of 15 to 75. Women usually participate from 13 to 35.

  • After bearing children or marriage many women leave sexual market while men are less likely to do so.

  • Positive polygamy coefficient for men and negative for women. A man usually wants and strives for more than one sexual partner while women express "crowd effect": they usually want a man who already successful among women, so many women attach to a single sexual partner with no interest in other men. In a result, small percent of men has large percent of available women leaving the majority of men unsatisfied.

  This all leads to the rise of the prices which men pay for sexual services. Homosexuality worsens the situation. With equal number of gays and lesbians, the share of women available on sexual market decreases in higher proportion compared to men. This, further exemplified with other feminist measures such as the increase of age of consent, creates huge deficit of women on the sexual market and huge amounts of sexually unsatisfied men. This in turn leads to social tensions, rise of rapes and other crimes and political extremism.

• Homosexual propaganda may affect one's children. Some people while not objecting private homosexual acts would be strongly opposed to public expression of homosexual love, as well as any "equal-rights" measures, because this may agitate their children into homosexuality. This may be viewed highly undesirable because of the following reasons among others:

  • It is evolutionary advantageous for all people to spread their genetic material as widely as possible. This is one of the reasons why people bear children and ensure their safety. If the kids are involved in homosexuality, this may stop the spread of the genes and discontinue the family.

  • In some cultures passive homosexuality is seen as very shameful and the people are stigmatized. For instance, in Russian criminal community according their informal code of conduct "Poneatia" passive homosexuals are singled as untouchable. Knowing this a parent may be afraid that this may heavily complicate the life of their children not only in case they imprisoned but also in the real life.

Answer 3

One secular argument against government recognition of gay marriage is that the reason governments recognize marriage and provide benefits to married couples is to encourage the creation of stable environments for procreation in which paternity can be assumed and thus the raising of children will be done by two parents (one of each sex which studies show is better for children than two parents of the same sex) both of whom have a strong interest in good parenting due to biology. Since gay marriage does not encourage the creation of such environments, why should the government recognize it and provide benefits to gay couples?

Another secular "argument" (not sure if I should call it that) I've heard often is that homosexuality is gross, disgusting, icky, etc. Many people seem to confuse what they dislike with what should be illegal.

Answer 4

Yes, there is a strong overlap between anti LGBT sentiments and religiosity but also with conservatism in general. Conservatives tend to put a lot of focus on how uncontrolled sexuality could lead to behavior that is harmful to others and to one self, and tend to be very weary of any expression of sexuality that involves multiple partners, that is casual in nature, that is overly public or is somehow associated with minors.

That said here are the most common conservative non religious arguments against LGBT rights that you might find in rightwing circles:

There is no such thing as LGBT rights

They argue that rights should not be associated with arbitrary political labels and movements. LGBT individuals should have the same rights as any other invididual. By fighting for rights for specific groups instead of individual rights in general, you are likely just trying to justify special privilages and special treatment.

Marriage is about children

They argue that the main goal of marriage is to ensure the child grows up with a mother and a father, as they consider this form of family arrangement to be optimal for child raising as both the mother and father fulfil important roles.

Since homosexual relationships are baren by definition, they see marriage as incoherent as no child will come. When talking about adoption, they will point out that the lack of a father or a mother is suboptimal, as an important role will be missing, and therefore, heterosexual couples should always be given prefference.

They also tend to associate the LGBT movement with casual sex, multiple partners and overly public displays, and they see that as a potential source of danger for the child. They also tend to believe that homosexuality is a learned behavior, and that the child might mimic the adptive parents, which they consider to be an overal dangerous behavior to mimic.

But they tend to approve the marriage of heterosexual beren couples, even if no children will be raised, since they consider it a good practice to emulate marriage behavior. They don't think marriage behavior can be coherently emulated by homosexual couples due to the lack of the 2 roles of the marriage.

Depopulation concerns

One common concern in rightwing circles is the notion that the native population is not having enough children and that this will lead to a cultural death in the future. They generally encourage everyone to have a lot of children as a way to preserve their traditions and values.

Since homosexuality is inheritely beren, this is something that they see as suboptimal, and a potential danger to the future of the culture. This is specially the case since they think sexuality is learned behavior, so, they have concerns that young people might adopt this behavior.

Early association between homosexuality and infidelity

One of the most common scenarios early on that were used against the LGBT movement is the concern that husbands were cheating on their wives with other men, and this lead to a lot of opposition to the establishment of gay bars, and other places where LGBT behavior was normalized.

This narrative lost momentum over the years, however.

Guilt by association

One common narrative is that sexual predators are attracted to LGBT environments, and that they use LGBT labels as a shield. The most common concern is that pedophiles might be hiding within LGBT groups as a way to more easily have access to children, for example through adoption.

They also associate the LGBT label with leftist ideology and communism, so they see the movement as a potential vector of propaganda.

This results in a sort of passive discrimination, where they don't openly antagonize them, but since they see LGBT as associated with a bunch of negative stuff and overall as a red flag so they try disassosiating themvelves from it, for example by not hiring them.

Answer 5

What non-religious arguments, if any, are used against LGBT rights in general and marriage equality in particular?

One point has not yet been considered, the rights of transgender persons to participate in sports competitions. This particular "LGBT right" to change your gender and exercise all rights, including the participation at sports competitions.

There has been a lot of turmoil regarding transgender woman athletes participating sports such as swimming and athletics where the male physique gives a big advantage against the female physique.

Many athletes that are physically female criticize the participation of transgender women because of their physical advantage.

This critic has nothing to do with religious justified reasons for rejection of LGBT rights.

There are currently studies on the way that try to proof that trans persons doesn't have advantages physically.

Opinion: IMO the unfair advantage is in some fields very obvious, if a trans participant wins a competition with huge difference to the other participants, where the same finishing-time at the men's competition would be only a placement in the lower third.

Freedom ends where it restricts the freedom and rights of others. In this case the right for fair competition.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/womens-sports-extinction-transgender-athletes

Answer 6

This may be loosely relevant, since it's not a non-religious argument against LGBT rights in general, but merely commonly cited reasons for not advancing LGBT rights.

Nearly all of them are variants of: this is the way it's always been done.

The toilet question.

Many (all?) societies practice gender/sex separation in certain areas: toilets, changing rooms in spas, public swimming pools, etc. This is done along the lines of the biological sex, since the distinction between biological sex and societal gender is relatively young.

Since the existence of male and female facilities in itself is not contrary to LGBT rights, there's regularly discussion about how to treat trans persons in this binary setting, or whether to expand this binary situation, e.g. with unisex facilities.

This whole discussion is similar to the question of sports competitions, which were brought up in another answer. Not really an argument against, but definitely an argument for retaining status quo: We don't know, what to do.

Conscription et al.

Some societies have different legal treatment in place, which is founded - again - on the biological sex, since this is the way it has always been.

Similar to other questions: how to treat trans people in terms of conscription?

Legal gender

The question of conscription leads to the general question of the legal gender. Most official identity papers feature some kind of gender information.

Right now, this is base on the biological sex which is easy to determine (in most of the cases) and doesn't change (as of now, people can't change their genome). If you sever the link to the biological sex, many questions arise, which are new: who determines the gender, when is it determined, can it be changed, how often can it be changed, etc.

Again, no solid argument against LGBT rights, but a whole world of complication, food for discussion and nuances to disagree on.

Answer 7

• Democratic (populist) argument: "this is what people wants". Note that this argument might be a valid atheist (or non-denominational) argument even if the people does not want it on religious reasons.
• Economical argument: marriage is about to have the next generation of the country, gays don't have children, your pension insurance won't help you if not enough child is born.
• Group survival argument: as people has the right to survive, so has the country, our understable collective wish to exist much after many generations. Stats clearly show that accepted homosexuality and demographic collapse are coming together (here you can put estimated or real consequences).
• Mental health argument: (not accepting the New York psyichatrists idea of that homosexuality would be normal) State can not support mental derangements, state should try to heal them.
• Physical health argument: not that is the natural way of things, causing infections, various other problems, simply because things are pushed into things not designed for. State can not support this, the state should heal this.

Answer 8

"Life" and the "creation of life" is one of those mysteries that sparked a whole lot of religions or if not a full religion took a major part within religions. Like the old testament pretty early on has Genesis 9:7

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

And that's the part that Jews, Christians and much later Muslims got to read. So it's no surprise given that stuff like that is this early in the holy books that there would follow some insights into what is working and not working to that end.

And it's taken science a much longer time to figure out the exact inner workings of that process, while it probably took way less time to figure out that opposite sexes would create offspring and same sex wouldn't.

On top of the religious aspect you probably already had rulers figuring out that more hands can do more work and that if people constantly die through wars and whatnot some constant resupply would be required. So they also had an incentive to push such narratives.

Also the catholic church definitely figured out how they could use reproduction to control people. Like the origin of celibacy is apparently not in the mythology of the bible but in the practical consideration that the church could stay rich if the priests don't have children or spouses which could give away or inherent their fortunes.

And you don't have to be a feminist to read through 19th century restrictions on unmarried woman to realize there's very little they could do outside of marriage all by themselves and also their role in life is set once they entered a marriage, often explicitly stating that producing offspring and being sex ready is a marital duty...

But if a man would have wanted to have a life outside of physical labor and warfare they probably also had a tough time getting that outside of being born with a silver spoon in mouth...

So roles in life were often already preset by gender/sex and sexual orientation was prescribed rather than subject to the individual.

Now you can either see that as an insidious plot to subjugate women, as a means of population control and macromanagement by the government or a conservative might be overwhelmed with the new options and kinda jealous that they weren't available when they would have wanted them.

Seriously apparently gay people overcompensating of doing straight things to not appear gay, seems to be or have been a well documented thing.

With regards to rational reasons against gay marriage. Well there are usually just 2, a) marriage is often twofold, being a religious ceremony and a civil union and b) the civil union provides tax benefits and often explicit or implicit child support. Now fair enough religion has the home rule on religious stuff, but with regards to civil unions that doesn't count. Also straight people might enjoy the tax benefits as well even if they don't have children and gay people could adopt children (if they are allowed to). So there are no good arguments against that.

I mean you really have to suck at math to realize that 5% of the population not making babies is not going to kill the population any time soon or that actually the global population is RISING not falling. So yeah more gay people might be necessary...

But seriously sure you could also argue that yeah lots of people are born but it's the wrong kind of people,... so you know racism... Again no good argument.

With regards to culture, ... did these people look up what culture means? Like if culture refers to skin color, superficial characteristics and where and to whom you are born rather than your language, customs, history, behavior, art, ... then that's racism not culture.

Now some argument could be made by conservatives that sexual promiscuity could lead to trouble. Like people pumped with horny hormones to stupid things and thing related to sex could give you incredibly high highs and incredibly low lows and are among the leading causes of people getting at each others throats.

But then again is that actually a problem if people get laid and don't overcompensate with aggression or whatnot? Also when has any attempt to regulate that worked, like ever...

Answer 9

This may mostly come from the fact that gender orientation is not absolute. It exists on a spectrum. Some people that would give a preference for one of the genders can still bear with another. APA writes, for instance, that the orientation is not necessarily bound to a single gender. A gay competing against the woman for the same man is one of the most dramatic plots.

The "folk wishdom" then pushes all that can still join a family composed from man and woman to follow this way of life.

Creating family is not some strictly personal action that has no impact on society. Family also has social functions, most important, of producing the next generation. It would be very strange for a society not even try to interfere. Historically, choosing not to form a family (outside specific cases like joining a monastery), or a man and woman deciding not to have children in their family, has been frowned upon as well.

Fifteen percent (14.7%) of the same-sex couples in the United States in 2019 had at least one child under 18 in their household, compared with 37.8% of opposite-sex couples (source).