I just wrote a comment post on The Information Paradox in response to an article on about California proposition 8 which would ban same-sex marriage by state constitutional amendment. I just read it over again and I like it enough to reproduce here on etravian.com…
“The State of Connecticut is facing a similar challenge to its recent ruling in favor of same-sex marriage with a vote on whether or not to hold a constitutional convention which could potentially act as a bid to invalidate the legal ruling. The *crazy* Christian people really *do* know how to throw money around and act fast to thwart the rights of others.
There are plenty of *non-crazy* religious folks, of course. I have a number of friends, both gay and straight, who abide by some form of One-God Christian faith. From Unitarian to Born Again, I’d venture that the majority of churchgoers really couldn’t care less about my sexuality. Today.
Yesterday, that’s a different story. Turn the clock back just a couple decades and I’d have gotten attacked in the street — almost any street — for just holding hands with my partner. Is it that people have just gotten nicer in New England? Hardly.
It’s on the backs of our forebears that today’s GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer) community enjoys the right to be seen as normal, equal, just like everyone else… EXCEPT.
Except we’re not quite there yet on a national level, are we? Head a couple hundred miles inland from either coast and you could still be in hot water for the handholding bit. Where some would smile and some would stare, still others, albeit a small minority, would take it upon themselves to forcibly break a simple union of hand upon hand.
And there’s the rub. BECAUSE a few roughnecks (or hell, maybe a few 70-something grandmas for all I know) would try to beat up on a happy couple just for walking and enjoying their… couple-age?… the GLBTQ community and its allies have a *responsibility* to respond — to counteract this hatred and these *perceptions* that being non-hetero is inherently BAD and something to be stamped out.
And this is where we get back to the topic at hand. Whether you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, or straight, you have a right to believe in or to utterly reject for yourself the institution of marriage, and that free speech right is totally unrelated to this issue. Whether you believe marriage is a governmental or religious function is only peripherally related, because even the *crazy* religious people are correct in their assertion that the church is sovereign in its ability to choose who they want to marry (if you have issue with the church, take it up with them).
The issue here is one of governmental policy and its inherent ability to shape societal norms. We The People of this country *should* all share the same set of inalienable rights. Time after time, we’ve shown ourselves and the world that we really believe that, and the way we’ve shown it for succeeding generations is to put those rights into law when previous law has proven unclear in its scope.
Women, voting? Impossible!
Men and women of color, citizens? My word!
Interracial marriage? Perish the thought!
These are just three examples of formerly outlandish things that are taken for granted today after years or decades of effort on the part of a few, then many people who realized that equality is only equality when applied across the entire populace. Whole generations of Americans had to live and breathe under the laws that made *some* subgroup of society equal-by-statute before their children could simply see them as an unqualified ‘equal.’
So here we are today, and the GLBTQ fight for equality is at the cusp of getting equality-by-statute. Like it or leave it, same-sex marriage *is* a sort of Holy Grail for equality in the United States, and it’s the *crazy* religious folks who made it so by forcing the issue time and again.
And they’ll keep trying to fight it until they lose, officially. And then they’ll die off at a ripe old age, leaving their grandchildren with a world that gasps in awe at the dark ages their forebears lived in, where who you loved could actually determine the rights you qualified for in America.
With that being said, I’d love some term other than marriage to refer to the union that I want to have with my partner. So many horrible things have been done and said in the name of marriage that I would be just as happy with some other term *if* I have the choice to call it marriage if I want to.
Since I don’t yet (at the Federal level), I will choose to embrace the term ‘marriage’ because it is through this level of activism (read: marketing) that I am working to ensure that others will not see me as unusual, abnormal, or worthy of reproach in the generations to come.
I agree with the agnostics, the atheists, and even a good chunk of the religious folks that marriage, at least in its contemporary context, is a procreative construct, a holy union of two individuals under some deity, and/or a vehicle to protect and concentrate fiscal assets.
To all of these people I say: “You have your say. Now let me decide what *my* marriage means.”
Vote on election day. Vote down Prop 8 in California or the Constitutional Convention in Connecticut because in the end, history will judge our actions now. If you’re of the mind to keep rights from certain groups of Americans based on antiquated and incorrect precepts, vote as ye may, and let time reveal how foolhardy you really are.”
To all the activists out there who are fighting to build community and equality each and every day, I salute you! Cheers!
-Brent
Very well said.
I just wish the issue in CT was clearer to voters … Prop 8 is a Yes or No for something very specific, while Question 1 introduces the potential for damaging legislation without actually saying anything about it.