Gay Marriage Ban: Legislating Intolerance

The bill that will ban gay marriage, or rather define it as a union between a man and a woman, is going for a full senate vote next month, according to Reuters. I find this yet another in a long line of sad situations. Our government is comprised of mostly conservatives in the power positions these days. Their basic platform is smaller government. Which equates to a government which does not control every detail of its citizens’ lives. That is once again, a huge conflict with what the religious right/conservatives are trying to pull off now with the gay marriage ban.

One of the most distressing things about this issue, for me, is the fact that we’ve totally lost sight of why the seperation between church and state was so vital and important in the first place. Now, as a country, we’re running roughshod over a very large and vital part of our fabric. These legislations should not touch marriage, and they should not consider God in the writing of a Bill. They do not have the exclusive copyright on what God wants of us, and it should have no bearing whatsoever on our laws.

It seems that the few issues of importance to this administration, that don’t have to do with oil, are all about rewriting the Bible. How many times can one say this: If you’re going to throw your bible at people, don’t leave out the part where it says don’t judge others, over and over again. Every single time this particular argument is brought up, without fail or exception, a conservative will ignore it and attack any other issue, but that one. Why is it so difficult for them to say, “Hey, yeah it does say that more than anything else, and yeah we ignore it because we just really want to make everyone the same, kind of like nazis-and the only way we can get away with that is to say that it’s what God wants. We like to say God alot to make it sound credible, but it’s really all about what we want, and we don’t like diversity.” I demand to know, people, why so many of you ignore that. I think the rest of us who are having to live under your rules are entitled to an answer as to why that is the only piece of your precious book that you seem to have license to dismiss. If you’re so divinely correct, back it up. I have spoken to God, and he agrees with me. You should explain.

I fail to understand why it matters to our government who should be able to marry who. Marriage is an institution that society has used throughout history. It is not patented by governments, and it should not be overseen by governments. We now live in a country that can listen to our phone calls and blame it on terrorists, who can take our jobs and give them away but still say the economy is steady, who can let us lose our children’s college funds to pay for gas so that they can make obscene profits, (and yes, there is a connection there, though many now quote oil executives to refute it), who can now tell us who God wants us to be committed to. We live in a country that has just made it acceptable to take away millions’ civil rights. In the America I want to live in, if you love someone you should have the right to express your commitment in a public ceremony if you so choose. We are being lied to on a daily basis, and being fed brainwashing the likes of which we have not seen before.

What is happening with this issue, and many others, is occurring so slowly and steadily that many of us are simply asleep to it. When you have governments blatantly changing the laws to accomodate what they believe in, and to widen the gap between their financial level and others, that is no longer democracy-and what are we doing about it? Absolutely nothing. No democrat, no independent, no real American person, is doing anything about it. When we are passive our hands become bloody as well.
I certainly hope those of you who support this oppression and bigotry never find yourselves falling deeply in love with someone our new rules don’t allow you to share your life with. Thousands of children, in foster care, that noone else wants, who gay couples lovingly adopt, won’t be able to say their parents are married. We’ve doomed them to a life where their parents constantly have to excuse their hostile environment, and to try to instill in them tolerance, where tolerance cannot be found among their communities. This will bleed into all our cozy little lives, those of us who’ve never had to face oppression of some type, in ways we could not have imagined before.

This is not about whether Americans or American politicians believe homosexuality is moral. Some would say intolerance is more immoral than anything else. No group or individual holds the patent on morality. It is about protecting all of our rights.
It is not just a bill. It’s a tragedy, and one that is being quietly dismissed by millions right now, so that we can move on to the next news story.