Hello, world!
Well, we seem to have, at long last, found a subject for which I care enough to acquiesce and forge my debut into the blogging world, or blogosphere, as I am told it is called.
Let's talk gay marriage. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, or this is far in the future and you need to be reminded, the proposition of a constitutional ban on gay marriage is a pretty hot topic these days.
My stance: Undeniably, indescribably PRO gay marriage...
That said, let's look at the reasons people have stated for being opposed:
1) Tradition says marriage is between a man and a woman. ---Uh, okay. I guess I'll go acquire some shackles, then, and start eating table scraps. Did you hear that the sun is still circling the earth after all? And that they're officially un-registering all female voters for the upcoming election. Likewise, the navy's going to start manufacturing cannon-firing warships again. So what if they're obsolete. Traditionally the best armed forces have the strongest navies. Obviously, just because something is traditional, doesn't make it right. Likewise, just because something is new, doesn't make it right either. But here, we're talking about more fair or less fair. But I'm getting ahead of myself. More on that later.
2) Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage. --- This is a stance which is almost laughable. In fact, I do laugh at it, by querying a coworker of mine daily as to whether the latest spate of gay marriages have caused marital problems for he and his wife. Sound absurd? Well, it certainly should. If your commitment in marriage is so tenuous that it depends on the marital state of another couple, then you have a lot bigger problems than your support of a constitutional amendment. Gay people are wonderful spouses, mothers, fathers, and that does NOT weaken the institution of marriage one bit.
The fact of the matter is that loving another human being is right. No one disputes that. Likewise, devoting yourself to another human being because of that love is also right. The only way you could possibly be mean-spirited enough as to try to dictate that one couple's love is less deserving of legal protection than another's simply because the people concerned are of the same gender is if you believe, since we've determined that love and devotion are good things, that being gay is wrong. Or that homosexual love is inferior or irrelevant as compared to heterosexual love.
That's it exactly, you say, I've couched it in terms of tradition and upholding societal values, but really, deep down, I believe gayness is wrong.
The most common reason for such a view is one of religion. "Scripture says blah blah blah." Well, you know what? You can hold whatever religious belief you want, but TOUGH. The state is under no obligation to honor your specific religious creed, just because your holy book says YOU have to. Separation of church and state, baby. You can believe gay people are sinners, going to hell, worthy of contempt and possibly attempts at salvation, but certainly not equal protection under the law. But it is precisely because our country is so great, that your rules don't apply to everyone.
The second most common reason is some unspecified "feeling" of revulsion to the idea that homosexual love is equivalent to heterosexual love. Which can't be too fair, because you aren't gay and straight at the same time, so how can you compare? You probably feel this way because most people you know are all opposed to it, and you aren't allowing yourself to consider the alternative properly, or fairly. If you fall into this category, I urge you to figure out why you think gayness is a threat to you or to America. If it's because "everyone says so," that's not a very good reason. If you figure out it is actually becase of some latent religious beliefs or vestiges of a religious upbringing, see the preceding paragraph.
The fact of the matter is that homosexual behavior is not unnatural. Speaking as a biologist, homosexual behavior is WELL documented in other primate species, not just humans. And anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history should know that gayness has been a documented part of human existence since history began. I just LOVE the argument that homosexuality is some deviant behavior people choose. Like anyone would choose to be scorned by society, be the victim of a hate crime, or be possibly disowned by their parents.
How many people reading this have ever heard the expression "jumping the broom"? If you're not black and you said you haven't heard of it, I'm not surprised. Despite references to it still today. Jumping the broom is an expression that goes way back to the days of slavery. As you may expect, slaves were not allowed to legally marry. So when two such people decided they loved each other and wanted to wed, they would hold secret ceremonies with the other slaves whereby a broom handle was laid on the ground and the couple jumped over it together, signifying their committment to one another. This, of course, conferred no legal rights whatsoever, and the partners could be (and were) still sold away from one another.
The bottom line is this, people: banning gay marriage isn't going to stop people from loving one another, or from committing themselves to one another. All it's going to do is use the government to institutionalize the type of discrimination we've prided ourselves on moving away from for a couple generations now.
Support for the ban=homophobia=bigotry, plain and simple.
As far as what you want to call it, marriage or "civil union", that's not important. If it's the same rights, eventually, it will sink in that it's an equivalent love...
Thank you for your time.