The psychology major strikes again

Back with an off-hand thought, because there isn't much to do at work and I didn't start a new book when I finished one last night. I stumbled across the idea of gender schematics/aschematics a couple of years ago and it pleased me very much. Essentially, gender schematics are people who have internalized traditional ideas of male/female behavior and gender roles: they act like "typical" men/women and assume other people are the same way. They also don't like it when people act contrary to their expectations (though nobody really likes that).

Gender aschematics, on the other hand, do not have highly internalized ideas of male/female roles, and basically don't put gender high on their list when considering or judging other people. I'm fairly sure that gender schematics are much more common than aschematics. I wonder if the reason that I, and several people whom I like and who think like me, are unconcerned about gay marriage and about homosexuals in general is that we're aschematic? Which would mean that the people who are very concerned about it are schematic and being so means that seeing men and women in non-stereotypical gender roles and behaviors pinches their worldview and gives them a headache.

I still think this is their problem, not mine, or homosexuals', or shouldn’t be. But I could understand it better if I saw it as a psychological problem rather than conscious or unconscious spite.

I've been in a bad mood, so this was helpful.

I just read the first sentence of this column by Orson Scott Card on legalizing gay marriage and burst out laughing. Couldn't help it. I also enjoy the definition of marriage as a "permanent or semipermanent bond."

I think his main argument, despite the amusing first sentence, is that gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because it will confuse children, leading to more gay marriages and the eventual extinction of mankind. Evidently he doesn't believe that our mainly-heterosexual-preferences are mostly biologically inborn. Which makes me wonder how we got here to start with, and why it didn't all come tumbling down back before we had laws to force us into our evidently artificial heterosexual relationships. He promises to address the science of homosexuality in a later column, so maybe he'll discuss it there, but I don't think I'll look for that. (What was it Voltaire said? "Once, a philosopher. Twice, a pervert.")