If there is any battle in which I have no dog entered, it would be the continuing culture war over gay marriage. (I hate the fact that we describe everything as a "war". Can't we just have an argument about something and leave it be? Married couples do it all the time.) On this issue I am about as far off the reservation as it possible to be, watching the bru-ha-ha is mostly about seeing people at their, best, worst, and most confused.
It is hard to imagine that this war actually means much. Marriage is a fading institution. Mind you, I am a huge fan of marriage. Mine has been going on for 37 years come next week; with three grown daughters, 5 grand kids and two more on the way, I can't imagine my life having unwound any other way. But mine is not the majority story anymore, nor should anyone assume that my experience is the only or best experience for everyone. Clearly it wouldn't work very well if my romantic leanings were toward men, or my wife's toward women.
Regardless of the "war" gay people are going to love and live together without bothering to get a blessing from a church or a piece of paper from the government; just like a growing number of "straight" people. In some ways outlawing gay marriage is like trying to outlaw eating by gay people. They are going to eat anyway.
It is also an issue only because the religious keep it an issue. It is a bit like being left-handed. Not so long ago left-handed was just slightly "off." Left handed kids were forced to try and be right handed in school. Utter foolishness and completely unnecessary. Being left handed only mattered as long as right handed people tried to make everyone the same. As soon as society pulled its collective head out of its ass, left handed people just went about their lives. I can't see that being gay is any different. That someone is gay and wants to marry the person they love has no more of an effect on a straight person than a left handed person does on a righty. The utter absurdity of the religious position simply can't be over-stated.
There have been gay people throughout recorded history. (I get a big kick out of the argument that the story of David and Johnathan in the Jewish Bible is that of a passionate bi-sexual couple. One could certainly read it that way.) I know that the only real objection toward gay unions comes from religious people, and mostly from religious fundamentalists. So far as that goes I don't care. They are religious fundamentalists. Bigotry and senseless hatred are pretty much all we should expect from religious fundamentalists.
I am surprised to see so many African American church people lining up to resist civil rights for gay people. I know it is part of fundamentalist Christianity, but I never really thought of African Americans as particularly fundamentalist. They were, if memory serves, routinely bashed for being "liberal" Christians during the civil rights movement. I guess it is only oppression when it is your family, your friends, who are being shoved to the back of the bus. Even if they think that being born gay is some kind of "sin" I would have thought the African American community would chose to err on the side of acceptance and tolerance rather then side with oppression. I can't help but think that African American preachers who are leading the attack on gay marriage laws are the worst kind of hypocrites. Pass a law that states Black Americans can't get married, and listen for the howls of protest from those same pulpits.
I am equally surprised to see how many people have found the Church's doctrinal hatred of gay people as forcing their first steps away from unquestioned fidelity to religious ideology. This seems a pretty positive sign. When religions get out of whack things tend to get very ugly very quickly. It would help all of us if those following the religions abandoned the ideology at the first sign of cruelty, oppression, or hate. It is likely thousands of people abandoned their Catholic identity in the wake of the child slavery / abuse scandal and cover up. Perhaps many thousands more found the bond of power the RCC had over them somewhat lessened. That it is likely at least some people are reacting the same way to the Catholic and Protestant fundamentalists continuing hatred of gay people is a good thing. People abandoning faith when faith gets out of line is humanity's first line of defence against religious extremism.
Mostly though, I just don't get it. Of all the things in this world worth of hate, prejudice, war mongering, slavery, child abuse, poverty, religious extremism, cruelty to animals, why pick on gay people? Regardless of the religious paranoia, gay people simply don't hurt anything or anyone. Rising up to make war on them is just plain pathetic.
Which is about the only word I can come up with to describe the Republican Christan party these days...pathetic.
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