Hey everyone! I am blogging once in a while now for CNN so check me out there also!
What ever happened to gay marriage? People don’t really talk about it anymore. I fear the issue has just gone away. With all the excitement about a Bush-free world, everyone sort of forgot that we don’t really have equal rights for gays and lesbians yet. I am just as excited as everyone else that Bush will be out of office soon, believe me. Bush wasn’t a bad President. He was the WORST President. But just because he’s leaving doesn’t mean all our problems will be solved automatically.
I am just worried that the issue of gay marriage has been dropped as a political argument because the consensus from the last election is that so many people hate gays that there is no way to maneuver around that prejudice, so we might as well forget it. This is amazingly depressing and I am not sure what to do about it. I don’t want to forget about gay marriage because I think America can overcome its prejudices. We are a country that has made our history doing just that. I believe we are ready to abolish homophobic attitudes. They are outdated and frankly, totally beneath us. This is a great country. Why are we acting so immature about people wanting to build families? Who cares who makes a family anyway? Why is it even a problem? Why would anyone be against it? Why are people accepting that people are against it? Why is homophobia still OK, even among presidential candidates?
The only candidates who seem confident enough to talk about gay marriage are the ones who are adamantly against it, like Mike Huckabee. Oh my, I so do not heart Huckabee. He equates homosexuality with bestiality, which is interesting because he is so very closely tied to Chuck Norris, who does have a bit of a sensual beast in him. If you hate gays so much, why did you pick the celebrity who looks most like International Mr. Leather 1995 to endorse you?
Hating homosexuals is supposedly a Christian thing-which I don’t get either. I was raised in the church. My grandfather was a minister, and we had church seven days a week at my house. Of course, it sucked. Majorly. But the upside of it all was I did learn a lot about the Bible. I read the Bible-several times-and learned everything you would want to know about it. I even taught Sunday school, threatening all the kids who got out of line with eternal damnation. Because of my upbringing, I believe in God, and more importantly, I think I understand God. What God wants, what God is asking from all of us, is basically, “Don’t be an asshole.” That’s it. And we are lucky because of Jesus, now it is “Try not to be an asshole.” This of course, is the King James Version.
I wish for Huckabee, and for all those out there who oppose gay marriage, to just try, try, try not to be an asshole. It is all Jesus really wants.
Nice seeing your columns at Huffinton Post.
That site has some awful karma harboring gay-bashers, who enjoy causing pain to someone disabled with AIDS. You might pass that along to Arianna.
I posted this exact same thing over there (And a few other places. Everyone’s talking about gay marriage today!) Here ya go:
Really, I don’t understand what scares fundies so about gay marriage. If people are so scared that gay marriage is a threat to marriage, why not the same furor regarding divorce? If someone gets divorced, people shrug and move on without thinking twice about it. Yet, the gay couple down the street who have been together, very happily, for 10 years can’t get married because it’s a THREAT to marriage.
Wow, if gay folks get married, they will suck the “marriage energy” directly out of the air and it will drain away from every straight married couple until every single one of them is divorced and worshiping Satan.
Seriously though, I don’t understand the religious furor over gay marriage. Marriage is NOT a religious institution no matter how many Americans want it to be. It CAN involve religion if you so choose. But the only thing that counts is the LEGALITY of it. Atheists can get married. Buddhists can get married. You can get married by a priest or a judge. No religion needed.
I’ve argued a LOT about this with people. But I’ve learned that the problem with simple-minded fundies is that you CAN’T reason with them. They don’t listen to common sense. Common sense is the devil (quite literally). So, intelligent arguments are wasted on them. Trust me, I’ve tried.
And, I also wanted to add… I’m not sure what I think of religion or Jesus. But I grew up in a very religious environment. And the image I always got of Jesus is that he would love everyone. He was very John Lennon-like in my head. So, I honestly think, if he exists or is watching from anywhere upon high, he would be extremely pissed at so-called “Christians” today.
Two stories from this week on gay marriage (or lack thereof) in Australia:
1. A lesbian couple had their Intent to Marry application accepted by a registry office.
2. Couples can have a civil union in Australia… provided one of them is British, and the ceremony is conducted in a British consulate.
Well, that pisses me off. On CNN I submitted the same comment that I submitted above (first comment). And aparently the readers of CNN are little innocent, pious babies who can’t handle teeny-tiny cuss words so the comment is no longer there.
I meant to say the SECOND comment on this page, sorry.
As a Cleveland Jewboy married to a half Korean, half Japanese woman born in shanghai, gay marriage is deja vu all over again for us. When we got married in 1964, our marriage was illegal in 16 states. The appropriately named ACLU case of Loving v Virginia got the Supremes to toss the miscegenation laws off the books.
I want to see gays, and other non het couple types have equal personal rights. But I look at gay marriage like the “Emperor’s New Cloths.” Gay marriage isn’t good or bad, it’s stupid, like when our founding fathers designated slaves as three fifths of a person. Gay marriage continues to violate the First Amendment by legislating about a sacrament, marriage, which should be the sole province of religion. Single and polyamorous people also resent that it perpetuates the tyranny of special rights for couples.
The real solution is to affirm personal rights. Get government out of religion. Let religions marry whom they please, there are plenty of religions to go around for everybody, and it is easy to start one to suit any taste. Government might come into the picture to record any domestic partnership that people wanted to put together, much like real estate transactions are recorded. Otherwise, every one should have an equal right to health care and be able to designate who they want to make decisions for them when they are ill, etc.
Sienus
Hopefully the next person comes in after him. Will be able to change all of that for good.
I would like a t-shirt that says “Just try NOT to be an **shole.
There are some really quality comments on this subject, let alone the original article. Perhaps a little less government and a little more enlightenment for our citizens.
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