For obvious reasons, I’ve been following the whole gay marriage thing quite closely. It saddens me to have such a hateful man as the leader of the United States (Personally, I will always refer to him as ‘Bush Lite’ and will never dignify him with “Mr. President” or even “human being”.) While tossing this whole deal around in my erratic mind, there are several things that I can’t quite comprehend about the whole debate.
1. Isn’t the constitution designed to declare and protect our freedoms, rather than take them away? As I recall, the only constitutional amendment that took away citizen’s rights was prohibition, and we all know how swimmingly that went.
2. Isn’t the creation of a religiously biased constitutional amendment in violation of the whole separation of church and state ideal?
3. Why has San Francisco just started handing out marriage licenses to same sex couples? It’s not like the whole gay thing is a new idea in San Francisco. Was there an epiphany involved?
Honestly, I’m ambivalent about any kind of marriage as a “declare your love in front of God” ideal, because Earl and I don’t believe that you have to be standing in a church, dressed up in wedding clothes and exchanging your vows in front of a padre to consider yourselves married. For us, it’s simple. Declare your love for one another in front of God. You can do this in a chapel, in front of a McDonalds drive thru speaker or at the State Fair… I don’t think God is that picky. Love is love. God is omnipresent. If anyone knows when you’ve been sleeping, and knows when you’re awake, its God.
As stated on our “About Us” page, you’ll see that we’re already married. I proposed on a mountaintop in October ’96. We exchanged our vows in front of witnesses on December 26, 1996 at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. It was the type of ceremony that we wanted. Was God involved? Abso-friggin’-lutely. I know that we homosexuals are suppose to be all agnostic and such, but sorry, for us that’s just not true. Earl and I are very spiritual. We share in God’s love. We pray daily, and not just the simple warp-speed mumble before the mashed potatoes get cold. And we know that we were brought together to go through life as one. Who cares if we are both men. Not to sound smug, but you won’t find many unions between any two people, man/woman, man/man or woman/woman, with a relationship as strong as ours. However, we unfortunately don’t benefit legally or financially from our marriage. And that’s where I have a problem with the whole thing.
Even to the most casual observer, it’s obvious that the use of the word “marriage” has everyone’s panties in a wad. Bible beaters scream that the Bible declares marriage to be the union of a man and woman for the purpose of procreation. O.k. …
1. Doesn’t that outlaw divorce?
2. Doesn’t that outlaw the marriage of a sterile individual?
3. Doesn’t that prohibit marriage after menopause?
Whatever happened to “Love thy neighbor…”?
Besides, the Bible also talks about several other issues, including:
Leviticus 25:44 — one may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. This apparently includes Mexico and Canada.
Exodus 35:2 — those that work on the sabbath should be put to death. I would assume this includes Wal*Mart 24-hour Supercenter employees.
I could go on and on, but if you google for “Dear Dr. Laura”, you’ll get a lovely list. (She’s such a gem, that Dr. Laura) And never mind that the Bible has been translated, retranslated, edited, regurgitated, condensed, expanded, fluffed and folded over the past 2000 years or so. My grandfather remarried shortly after my grandmother passed away. He was 80 years old at the time. I’m pretty certain he wasn’t marrying for procreational purposes, though he has said, most recently at Thanksgiving in a very loud voice, that does enjoy sex. I say “Bravo” to him for getting married again and having a happy sex life!
I don’t like the idea of a double standard, but I think Vermont has the right idea with the “civil union” thought. Would Earl and I like to be legally married? Of course we would… in the legal sense. As far as we’re concerned, we’re already married in the spiritual sense. Could we deal with a “civil union”? You betcha. I can already hear the old bitties at the mall. “Oh, those two men are (whisper) unionized.”
Where is this going? God only knows. I think Baby Bush is stupid enough to base a good share of his re-election campaign on this issue. After all, he can’t campaign on the war (it’s unorganized, American soldiers are still killed daily in Iraq and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight), nor education (he just cut 38 programs out of the “No Child Left Behind” law), nor the economy (a record deficit in the shortest amount of time in the nation’s history), nor Social Security (I’d be very surprised if the program still had enough money for postage to mail the bounceable checks by the time my turn comes around), nor his foreign policy (we all know that the U.S. would not win a world popularity contest right now). He started his presidential term with a nation divided, he might as well end this nightmare the same way. However it turns out, I’m afraid there’s going to be backlash. The right will get righter, the left will get lefter. I do know that if that fool does get his constitutional amendment, then I no longer wish to be an American. That sounds like a strong statement, and that’s because it is. And there’s no doubt in my mind that that’s how I really feel. I’ve never lived my life as a second class citizen in any manner, and I’m not about to start because the powers that be have lost their mind and mangled the constitution. But I don’t think that constitutional amendment will get passed. I don’t think the country as a whole is that hateful. For better or worse, this whole thing will simmer down.
Until this is all resolved, I suppose I’ll be glued to NPR and riding the gay marriage roller coaster along with everyone else. No matter how you feel, get out there and vote. Be involved. Let your voice be heard.
