Gay Maiwwaaajj
posted in History, The Popular Culture |You’ve heard the news?
Court Voids Gay Marriage Ban. California [Here].
And I’ve heard the radio talk-show hounds tell me that it’s “Anti-Democratic! Against the Will of the People to have a Law Forced into Our Lives!”
(But we’ve heard that before….)
- “Anti-Democratic Law-Breaker” (in some people’s opinion)
And I’ve heard - and made - the joke: “Why are gay men in favor of marriage?”
“You mean, they actually WANT THIS?”
But let’s be deeply, romantically honest…
We all, somewhere inside, want, want, really really want to say “Yes! Yes! Yes, Forever and Ever!” … to someone, at some point, (until the moment passes, the magic fades, the song ends, the sun rises, the hormones pass into our urine, and the romance leaves our bodies).
Oh, but I’m being crass. Love is more than chemical, and marriage is more than an “antiquated land-holding strategy”
Yes, people want to get married. Of course. Of course! (Not me! But…you, maybe?)
So, what are you gonna tell them?
“No”? “No, you don’t love each other the ‘right way.’ No, We don’t want you on our block. No, God says it’s bad.”
Yeah, well. It’s all been said before.
- Teaching us Loving
So, it looks like now is the time that the will is there to fight this issue.
But before I sound like a clanging bell, or kool-aid drinking “L”iberal…let me say that, if I ran the circus:
- I’d personally vote the State out of All marriage, and give all citizens the right to State-ratified ‘civil union-ship,’ equally.
- I’d then move the province of religious or spiritual marriage to individual churches, so that citizens could choose their particular idea of religious marriage under the banner of heaven that moves them most.
- Finally, I’d leave the church to its historical, and often recalcitrant philosophies of lifestyle-management, and lobby for Civil Union-hood in every State assembly, in order to give couples engaging in stable, long-term, familial relationships, equal protection, under the law. (And there’s that nice tax break too…)
But if gay marriage still seems like an unholy anathema to you, because it is not written in the Constitution, Magna Carta, or Pentateuch…
Let’s remind ourselves, we’ve “broken the laws of the land” before…
And we’re so much the better for it…
The Thirteenth Amendment (1865):
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868):
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The Fifteenth Amendment (1870):
Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The Nineteenth Amendment (1920):
Section 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Some things to consider, when we talk about living in a relative Democracy…