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This morning, a federal appeals court in Boston ruled that the 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman – the Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional because it deprives gay couples of the rights and privileges granted to heterosexual couples.
Oh, how I do enjoy the culture wars where victories mean we don’t have to kill people – like in actual wars – we just get to kill knuckle dragging, regressive ideas.
If you are among the minority of people who feels that marriage (as defined legally) should consist of a union between a man and a woman, know that public opinion is shifting so fast on this issue that soon enough you’ll be forced into the closet with your views.
And in the closet you can stay.
If it gets too lonely in the closet, you might occasionally venture out, under the cover of night where maybe you can cruise the park and find other hate mongers to commiserate with, and the anonymous, fleeting nature of your exchange might save you from the ridicule of your peers, who have jumped onto the wave of progress and are threatened not by the intimate acts and lifelong commitments between consenting adults.
If your argument for denying rights to homosexuals rests on any scholarship found in a book of laws written by an all knowing creator of the universe, then fine- bully for you- I’m sure there is a club of like people in your neighborhood where a man in a dress who has taken a vow of celibacy (alter boys don’t count!) will join you and yours in holy matrimony- and that is just great- nobody is taking that blessed event away from you.
But after you do your thing in the church, it isn’t legal until you go to court and sign a contract.
The argument that if Adam and Steve can be openly and legally married will somehow tarnish the integrity of their neighbors hetero marriage is part of a broader picture wherein people cling to an idealized picture of the world that recalls Norman Rockwell, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and the smell of moth balls. It was a simpler time, right before the 1st season of MAD MEN, where women did what they were told, and men did whatever they wanted and gay people did their best to become invisible. Sure, some of had an aunt Edna, who moved away and lived with her “friend” Alice but they never went anywhere as a couple, did they?
There are many who were killed because they were gay. Matthew Sheppard was beaten, tortured and strung up on a fence and left there to die because a real man was so enraged that he was gay. The defenders of the defenders of marriage act may never give physical agency to that kind of rage, but their brand of hatred springs from the same putrid, poisoned well. If you are infected with this rage, if you are foolish enough to defend the defense of marriage act my advice to you is keep it in the closet.
4 Comments
That’s some great news. I’ve always said that if I can’t participate fully in society, why in the fuck do I have the same tax burden as everyone else in my income bracket? Because that’s like two people each paying $1000 at a department store and one winding up with a 52″ LCD television and the other one winding up with a 1969 black and white Magnavox. If I can’t have the same rights, why does owning a Kia cost me the same as the people who get the Rolls?
Dennis,
It is people with your attitude that turns straight people against gay people. I am not gay but I do support rights for those who are. However, being gay does not give you the right to redefine the English language. The word ‘marriage’ has a long and defined tradition of meaning exactly a man and a woman. Why not call it something else? Like, civil union or domestic partner, or something else that would be agreeable, instead of making it look like an ‘in your face’ war. People with your attitude will only contribute to more Matthew Sheppard incidents.
The decision regarding DOMA was another heartening event in the progress toward civic equality for gay people. Across all demographics, people are moving toward an adult, rational understanding of sexuality. Watching O equivocate and temporize and weaszel out of support for gay equality has been enough to move me almost to tears of frustration and anger and disgust. But most of us are moving on in the right direction, even without leadership from the top. And I give us credit.
The word marriage has its roots in the Latin “matrimo,”nium which combines the two concepts “mater” meaning “mother” and the suffix “-monium” signifying “action, state, or condition.”
The union of two loving people was blessed by the Mother Goddess/es.
And under current laws, “civil unions” are actually any marriage today; as Dennis correctly points out, no marriage is legal unless a “marriage license” from the state, with a fee paid to the state, is signed and mailed back to the state. That license grants certain federal privileges and rights which are denied to those who must default to what you propose, a civil union, or domestic partnership.
Since in fact “marriage” is currently a civil contract and is not valid–even if performed by the Pope or Pat Robertson without that state-authorized signed contract allowing certain state and federal rights and privileges–it sort of makes more sense to give everyone a civil union with federal rights and privileges, and let the religious part be handled by the church if desired by all involved.