Proposition Hate
We're currently in the throes of yet another battle for the word "marriage." Here's the legal definition from www.lectlaw.com:
A contract made in due form of law, by which a free man and a free woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, in the union which ought io exist between husband and wife. By the terms freeman and freewoman in this definition are meant, not only that they are free and not slaves, but also that they are clear of all bars to a lawful marriage.
This is by no means inclusive of all states in the union, but it's enough for the folks on the right to latch onto and say "Look, it says 'man' and 'woman'!" Well, yes it does. But let's also consider that for congressional representation, slaves only counted for three-fifths of their total population -- not to mention that slavery was legal. Women also weren't allowed to vote. That went on for an embarrassingly long time.
The aforementioned conditions persisted until change was thrust upon America by those who were wronged. African Americans were a minority and women were a minority -- but somehow, both eventually broke free of the legal shackles placed on them the laws of the land where "every man is created equal." Amendments have been made to the sanctified Constitution of the United States because the document was written by people and people are flawed; they make mistakes all the time. They're short-sighted, in general. We can't foresee everything, but is there one person in the United States who can now look back and say with confidence that women never deserved the right to vote? Why were they denied the rights of citizenship? One could cite the Victorian image of the "hysterical" woman or Freud's own interpretation that women are little more than overgrown children.... But that flies in the face of "common sense," doesn't it?
I've mentioned before my dislike of that phrase "common sense," and here is yet another example. Morals shift over time -- slavery, misogyny and child labor are examples of things that were once "common sense," but we now look back and shake our heads at our rather socially primitive forefathers. Such is the same, I believe, with the gay marriage opinions.
The legal argument is the strongest, yet it is the one mentioned the least -- probably because laws can be changed. And some smarty-pants would come along and cite the other bigoted laws that have been stricken from the books. (Did you know that interracial marriage was illegal in Wyoming until 1965?) So, those who oppose the gay marriage legality fall back on the weakest and spookiest argument: God says so.
All right, here's the problem with that: God said a lot of things in the Bible... a lot of things that modern Christians ignore because "it was a different time," they'll state with some semblance of seriousness. They ignore things like slavery (the apologists state that this "slavery" was pertaining to prisoners of war who were "happy" to have their godless ways changed; I've actually heard this argument) and polygamy and stoning of blasphemers and stoning of sinners and the wholesale slaughter of anyone who doesn't worship in Yahweh. So, we ignore that stuff -- but the "man shall not lie with man as he does with woman," stuff is worthwhile -- because, well, it gives them a common enemy. Nothing gels people like a common enemy. So, they turn their hatred toward the homosexuals.
Oh, yeah, homosexuals are severely persecuted in Islam, too. It seems that Yahweh, no matter what context, has a thing for the women who like women and men who like men. "Created sick and commanded to be well," Christopher Hitchens likes to say.
But that's the hardcore Christians, right? They're the kooks on the right who hold up signs about God hating fags or whatever makes them feel at one with their personal invisible friend. What about the moderates who think that the word "marriage" has religious significance and should only be the union of a man and woman because that's the way God wanted it. If pressed, these moderates might acquiesce to "civil union" rather than "marriage" for the homosexuals. That seems harmless, right? Wrong. It still marginalizes the homosexuals to some secondary status to a joining of man and woman.
But if we allow this, people will eventually be marrying their pets, right? They'll find farm animals they "love" and want to marry them in a chapel in Vegas. I've heard this argument ever since this gay marriage thing came into the news. This is by far the most ridiculous argument. Let's just TRY to remember that gay people are human beings, OK? If this is your argument, perhaps you're just a little bit more than a minor asshole. Don't compare gay marriage to marrying animals. Polygamy might be the next stop on the slippery slope -- but we'll save that move for the hardcore Mormons living in the wilds of Utah... and swingers all over the United States might not mind this, either.
This inevitably leads to the kooks on the fringe to believe that homosexuals are just "broken" heteros that need to be fixed. The "fixing" involves therapy, religious counseling, and probably looking at some porn once in a while. Eventually, the brow-beaten, self-hating homosexual hits a breaking point and either leaves the "reprogramming" sessions or cheerfully states that he is now a hetero and always had been. He's just been infected by some kind of queer germ that made him look at other boy's penises (or another girl's boobs, if a woman is the subject). Undoubtedly, the newly fashioned hetero will harbor secret fantasies and have yet another reason to feel ashamed.
"All men are created equal," indeed. I'm glad we're re-thinking this. I'm happily hetero and have no concept of how a man could be sexually attracted to another man -- but I fully accept that there are such men. The problem is that some obtuse heteros don't make that leap and they assume that homosexuals are just deeply confused heteros, because it's just too icky to imagine. Well, that's how homosexuals feel about hetero sex. They're just that way. It's in their DNA, just as being hetero is programmed into us.
Oh, and for all the guys out there that enjoy having lesbian-sex fantasies... shame on you. Hypocrites.
A contract made in due form of law, by which a free man and a free woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, in the union which ought io exist between husband and wife. By the terms freeman and freewoman in this definition are meant, not only that they are free and not slaves, but also that they are clear of all bars to a lawful marriage.
This is by no means inclusive of all states in the union, but it's enough for the folks on the right to latch onto and say "Look, it says 'man' and 'woman'!" Well, yes it does. But let's also consider that for congressional representation, slaves only counted for three-fifths of their total population -- not to mention that slavery was legal. Women also weren't allowed to vote. That went on for an embarrassingly long time.
The aforementioned conditions persisted until change was thrust upon America by those who were wronged. African Americans were a minority and women were a minority -- but somehow, both eventually broke free of the legal shackles placed on them the laws of the land where "every man is created equal." Amendments have been made to the sanctified Constitution of the United States because the document was written by people and people are flawed; they make mistakes all the time. They're short-sighted, in general. We can't foresee everything, but is there one person in the United States who can now look back and say with confidence that women never deserved the right to vote? Why were they denied the rights of citizenship? One could cite the Victorian image of the "hysterical" woman or Freud's own interpretation that women are little more than overgrown children.... But that flies in the face of "common sense," doesn't it?
I've mentioned before my dislike of that phrase "common sense," and here is yet another example. Morals shift over time -- slavery, misogyny and child labor are examples of things that were once "common sense," but we now look back and shake our heads at our rather socially primitive forefathers. Such is the same, I believe, with the gay marriage opinions.
The legal argument is the strongest, yet it is the one mentioned the least -- probably because laws can be changed. And some smarty-pants would come along and cite the other bigoted laws that have been stricken from the books. (Did you know that interracial marriage was illegal in Wyoming until 1965?) So, those who oppose the gay marriage legality fall back on the weakest and spookiest argument: God says so.
All right, here's the problem with that: God said a lot of things in the Bible... a lot of things that modern Christians ignore because "it was a different time," they'll state with some semblance of seriousness. They ignore things like slavery (the apologists state that this "slavery" was pertaining to prisoners of war who were "happy" to have their godless ways changed; I've actually heard this argument) and polygamy and stoning of blasphemers and stoning of sinners and the wholesale slaughter of anyone who doesn't worship in Yahweh. So, we ignore that stuff -- but the "man shall not lie with man as he does with woman," stuff is worthwhile -- because, well, it gives them a common enemy. Nothing gels people like a common enemy. So, they turn their hatred toward the homosexuals.
Oh, yeah, homosexuals are severely persecuted in Islam, too. It seems that Yahweh, no matter what context, has a thing for the women who like women and men who like men. "Created sick and commanded to be well," Christopher Hitchens likes to say.
But that's the hardcore Christians, right? They're the kooks on the right who hold up signs about God hating fags or whatever makes them feel at one with their personal invisible friend. What about the moderates who think that the word "marriage" has religious significance and should only be the union of a man and woman because that's the way God wanted it. If pressed, these moderates might acquiesce to "civil union" rather than "marriage" for the homosexuals. That seems harmless, right? Wrong. It still marginalizes the homosexuals to some secondary status to a joining of man and woman.
But if we allow this, people will eventually be marrying their pets, right? They'll find farm animals they "love" and want to marry them in a chapel in Vegas. I've heard this argument ever since this gay marriage thing came into the news. This is by far the most ridiculous argument. Let's just TRY to remember that gay people are human beings, OK? If this is your argument, perhaps you're just a little bit more than a minor asshole. Don't compare gay marriage to marrying animals. Polygamy might be the next stop on the slippery slope -- but we'll save that move for the hardcore Mormons living in the wilds of Utah... and swingers all over the United States might not mind this, either.
This inevitably leads to the kooks on the fringe to believe that homosexuals are just "broken" heteros that need to be fixed. The "fixing" involves therapy, religious counseling, and probably looking at some porn once in a while. Eventually, the brow-beaten, self-hating homosexual hits a breaking point and either leaves the "reprogramming" sessions or cheerfully states that he is now a hetero and always had been. He's just been infected by some kind of queer germ that made him look at other boy's penises (or another girl's boobs, if a woman is the subject). Undoubtedly, the newly fashioned hetero will harbor secret fantasies and have yet another reason to feel ashamed.
"All men are created equal," indeed. I'm glad we're re-thinking this. I'm happily hetero and have no concept of how a man could be sexually attracted to another man -- but I fully accept that there are such men. The problem is that some obtuse heteros don't make that leap and they assume that homosexuals are just deeply confused heteros, because it's just too icky to imagine. Well, that's how homosexuals feel about hetero sex. They're just that way. It's in their DNA, just as being hetero is programmed into us.
Oh, and for all the guys out there that enjoy having lesbian-sex fantasies... shame on you. Hypocrites.
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