Finally, an objection to homosexual marriage I can deal with. One of those Old Testament fundamentalists explained his position quite clearly on the evening news. He said he doesn't want to see men being intimately affectionate in the stands when he takes his son to a baseball game. I can agree with that. I don't want to see it either.
In fact, I don't want to see heterosexual couples or groups engaging in intimate behavior in public. I don't want to see their private parts either; nor do I want to see them fondling other people's private parts. I don't even want to see married couples' intimate behavior (Al Gore kissing Tipper on the lips went too far) and I particularly don't want to see politicians kissing other people's babies. That's an unsanitary practice that should be abhored.
But, what I find really outrageous is people in the middle of an airport concourse (how more public can you get) being forced to take off their shoes and allow themselves to be "patted-down" like some criminal that's just been hauled off to jail. No, I don't want to see that and I'm sure not going to submit to such an invasion of my privacy.
If I were ever to take a trip on a commercial airliner (which I haven't yet), I would be prepared for the possibility of a crash and my immediate death. How that crash came about would not concern me significantly, though I would be momentarily annoyed if the failure to shut a door allowed an incompetent to take the pilot's place. On the other hand, the probability of having to undergo a body search, a violation that would stay with me the rest of my life, ostensibly to prevent a recurrence of something that only happened once in all of human history, is more than enough to convince me that it's just not worth it. Bad enough that I have to see a stream people go through the humiliation whenever I go to meet someone arriving on a plane.
In short, there's lots of behaviors that ought to be private that I don't want to see in public. The question is whether the proper response is "there oughta be a law" or to just use my eyelids for the purpose for which they were intended--i.e. to close my eyes and shut out the offending view.
It seems to me that we are relying increasingly on making behaviors illegal at the same time that we indulge all kinds of behaviors that are disgusting and should, therefore, be carried out in private. The fact is that many necessary bodily functions are unpleasant when they have to be witnessed by others (flossing the teeth is one, in case you need a mild example). Which is why we have defined categories of public and private and designated one or the other as appropriate, albeit in a somewhat arbitrary fashion.
What is perceived as disgusting in one culture may be perfectly acceptable in another. But there are behaviors which universally disgust and even their designation has to be taught (as every parent of infants surely knows). And it's the failure to teach which behaviors are appropriate to the public and private realm which seems to be responsible for the increasing effort to regulate human behaviors and relationships by law.
So, while I can agree with the fellow who doesn't want to see guys hugging and kissing in the stands, I've got to tell him that preventing people from entering into legal relationships for mutual support is not the solution. Their legal status has nothing to do with how people behave in public; nor in private, for that matter. Lots of people whose public behavior is inoffensive, are pure hell to live with in private. Primarily because, I would suggest, they haven't been taught to respect the right of the other to be secure in his or her person--i.e. the right to privacy. A right, by the way, which our government doesn't recognize either.