So this weekend has been kind of a bust. Wally threw up (I’m guessing the kennel gave him the wrong food), I threw up (being a girl stinks on occasion), and the rest of the time we spent rolling around on the bed, sofa, and carpet just moaning at each other. But at least we got that over with, and now we’re both feeling better.
And something really good happened this weekend. New York approved the gay marriage law. I try to stay away from political talk because few things incite so much anger and ruin as many friendships as politics, but this is an issue I feel very strongly about, so I don’t mind taking the risk. I am not only very much FOR gay marriage, I also truly believe that the political argument against gay marriage is not only ridiculous but blatantly prejudicial. And that combination—stupid and mean—makes me angry.
Let me be clear. I am talking about the POLITICAL argument against gay marriage. I have religious friends who are against it as a tenet of their faith, and that is not the opinion that I’m referring to. Even if my friends did not deserve respect for their faith, which they do, I am certainly not qualified to judge anyone’s religious beliefs. I personally disagree strongly with some of those beliefs for several reasons, but that is neither here nor there. Arguing about religion often turns into insulting someone's religion, and trashing someone’s faith is never my goal.
But, in any case, I’m not talking about the religious argument against gay marriage. I’m talking about the political argument against gay marriage. Oh, girl, you’re saying, how can you draw that line? Well, I’ll tell you how. It’s called separation of church and state, and it’s one of the founding guidelines of this country. Of course that separation is not always honored legally, and we could argue case-by-case if it should be (and if you don't believe in the separation of church and state, please stop reading, as I will no doubt make you very angry), but it is one of the Founding Fathers’ greatest and most enduring legacies. This separation gives us what the Fathers wanted, freedom. As long as our freedom does not encroach on others’ freedoms (ie, killing someone takes away their freedom to live), we are constitutionally guaranteed the freedom to believe what we want to believe and to live how we want to live. How proud are we as a nation of that concept? Millions of people have died valiantly and tragically to preserve that concept. And yet, somehow, the minute the topic changes to the legality of gay marriage, everyone seems to forget it.
Let’s be blunt: he marriage affected by laws such as New York’s is not religious marriage. It is legal, state-recognized marriage. God has been taken out of marriage in the eyes of the state—for better or for worse, who knows, but it’s been done nonetheless. The state recognizes marriages of all shapes, kinds, and prospects. If you’re a Muslim, legally you can marry a Hindu. Maybe it wouldn’t happen in a church with your traditional Catholic priest, but as long as you fill out the paperwork, and obey the law, your marriage will be recognized as a MARRIAGE by the state you live in, and granted the same rights as that couple married in a church. Pagans and aetheists, people completely outside of organized religion, can get legally married. An African-American can marry a Caucasian. An American can marry a person from Mexico—it’s complicated, legally, but it can happen. Two people past the age of childbearing can get married. A 30 year old can even marry a 16 year old, if her parents are fool enough to allow it. So let’s be very clear: marriage in the eyes of the state is not about God. It is not about age, religion, race, or nationality. Why, then, can you draw the line at this spot and say, no, marriage is about the gender of the persons participating in it?
Maybe it is, in the original legal language. However, the original lawmakers sure as heck didn’t write those founding laws with the concept of a Muslim from India moving here to marry a Jewish person from California, and yet, we have permitted ourselves to bend and adapt those original laws to allow for those possibilities. It was a question of freedom to do so—the answer to the question, is it fair and right for these two people to do this thing that they want to do. And no one raises a political red flag and says, “Wait, that’s not right.” Why, then, can’t we make legal adaptations to allow two people of the same gender to experience the same rights and protection as all the millions of other so-called “non-traditional” couples? As we said above, in a country where church and state are separated, the law is determined by logic and equality. How, then, can we see the laws allowing our international, interfaith couples as fair and just making sense, and not say the same for our gay couples?
The only answer to that question that I see is that there is still prejudice against homosexuality.
Think about it. If we dismiss the concept of religious morality as relevant, what are the other arguments? The only one we could possibly make to allow us to take away legal freedom is that the freedom up for debate, in this case gay marriage, infringes on the rights of others. And that argument is patently, and blatantly, untrue. Tell me, if my two gay male neighbors want to get married, what liberty does it infringe on? Who does it hurt? You or me? Not unless they come over and force either of us into a threesome, and if you believe that will happen, my argument for prejudice has been nicely proven, thank you. Gay couples being married takes away none of their neighbors’ civil liberties: they will still pay taxes, vote, continue on in their likely harmless lives with scarcely a difference made to anyone other than themselves. You know, like heterosexual couples do after they get married. When was the last time your heterosexual neighbors’ marriage directly negatively affected your life?
A lot of people say being a gay couple will hurt that couples’ children. First of all, there is something to be said for loving parents, no matter what gender, and how they can BENEFIT children, especially if they choose to adopt. Second of all, sure, hypothetically growing up in a family with same-sex parents could potentially hurt the children in terms of their emotional development. But there are no studies that prove that with any semblance of credibility. You know what studies show does definitively hurt children? Feeding them junk food or smoking around them. Are either of those acts illegal? I don’t think so. So why would we attack a parenting choice that is only a potential and brush aside choices that are certainly negative? Only because we don’t believe in the parents’ right to make that particular choice we attack. And the only reason we wouldn’t believe in the parents’ right to be a same-sex couple is because we are prejudiced against them.
Let’s be honest, the state of marriage in this country is pretty depressing. And maybe the conversation should be about how we should fix that. But that’s not what people are talking about, not really. It’s about whether or not gay couples should be allowed to jump into the murky pool of marriage and try to sink or swim just like heterosexual couples do with sometimes little to no forethought. How condescending is that? How dare we, the presumably heterosexual “majority,” discuss whether we should “allow” our fellow human beings to make the same choices we do? Somehow this patronizing, prejudiced, and politically completely unsupportable “dilemma” is our national narrative about the state of marriage. To me, this is unacceptable, and at the risk of going completely over the top with hyperbole, one of the worst aspects of our country.
So I say, yay New York!! You don’t have to agree with me, and I hope I haven’t offended anyone. But I, for one, am thrilled that what I consider sanity has prevailed. Love is great, and it should be celebrated, and honored with equality.
And ok, back to the sofa for me.
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