For some reason, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to start doing this again. It's not that there's nothing grabbing my attention. It's more like there's too much and most of it is old. I'm pretty amazed how much news I've missed by having to rely mostly on CNN and MSNBC over the past week.
I would've had plenty to say about the Auth cartoon, but it's been said better by others. And I still have a lot to say about our President's latest full frontal attack on gay marriage*, but that's over a week old, too.
Although, actually, now that I'm here, I think I'll say some of it anyway.
I really don't get why we're even talking about this issue. I really don't get how it is that Americans can sit back and tolerate, let alone support, this kind of bigotry. It really blows me away. While almost every other sort of blatant bias and hatred is ashamed to show its face in public these days unless it's cowering under some sort of disguise, calling itself something else, members of Congress and the President of the United States feel perfectly at ease courting their conservative constituents by pandering to their fear and loathing of homosexuals. How nice. How patriotic. How pious. It makes me want to puke.
For the record, the only real argument I've ever heard against homosexuality is Biblical. The Bible says it's bad, end of story. That's what people mean when they say it's "unnatural." ("God created Adam and Eve, not . . . .") That's what they mean when they talk about protecting the "sanctity" of marriage. What "sanctity?" Marriage is a sacrament in the Catholic church. It's a religious rite of passage in the Jewish faith and in just about every other faith as well. Exclusive control over marriage has traditionally been usurped by religious authorities and they don't like giving up their grip on it because it's a very powerful institution to control.
Problem is, in this country, in the United States of America, we recognize civil marriage. In the United States of America, we recognize the rights of individuals to marry without the blessing of any priest, minister, rabbi, mullah or guru. In other words, without the approval of any god or his/her minions. Here in America, control over marriage is shared by religious institutions and our civil government. But the last word belongs to the state, not the church, and the First Amendment to our Constitution says that the rules and regulations of the latter do not govern or dictate to the former. Religious doctrine does not, can not and must not determine the rights of citizens under the civil law.
So if a gay couple wants to get married in a synagogue, they need to take that up with the rabbi. If they want to get married in a church, they're going to have to find a minister who'll perform the ceremony. A member of the clergy can say "I won't agree to do that because the Bible says it's wrong. What you want to do violates the religious beliefs of this institution." If you don't like it, you have to lobby to change it or find a different religious institution that's freed itself from this particular form of bigotry. But neither the U.S. government nor the governments of its constituent states or municipalities have any business discriminating against some citizens on the basis of Biblical invective let alone invoking such invective in support of such discrimination.
The Bible says, "You shall have no other gods before me." That's unambiguous. But in America, it's not the law. We're free to worship other gods or no god. The Bible says, "Honor your father and your mother." Without qualification. But in America, children can divorce their parents. They're encouraged to dishonor their parents if their parents abuse or neglect them and the law protects them from punishment for committing such dishonor. The Bible says "You shall not kill," and "You shall not steal," and so does our law. But we don't justify those laws by citing the Bible. Those laws don't single out individuals or groups of individuals for second-class treatment. They apply to everyone, across the board. Take a life, with extremely limited exceptions, go to jail -- or die.
Why is it that this solitary prohibition, of all the hundreds to be found in the Bible (outside of certain of The Ten and one or two universally accepted others), is singled out for public endorsement by our President, by my Senator, by the Boy Scouts of America? Hatred, fear and loathing of The Other, that's why.
What a challenge to our civilization it would be, what an unimaginable apocalypse, if the love of two people for one another was simply acknowledged and accepted, without judgment or imposition of other people's personal values or religious beliefs (and may I point out, for those of you who are positioning your virtual fingers over the virtual incest button, that the main non-Biblical problem with incest has to do with genetic defects that result from inbreeding -- not an issue in this discussion)!
Reproduction is still necessary for the continuation of our species. But that's no longer a matter of concern. Hasn't been for quite a while now. If anything, excessive reproduction is a danger to our species today. And let's drop the pretense that marriage in our society is bound up with the will or ability to procreate. There's never been any (non-religious) movement to ban marriage between heterosexual couples unable or unwilling to produce children. In fact, many of the arguments in support of benefits for married couples stress the stabilizing and public health advantages of commitment -- which apply equally to gay and straight couples.
An increasing number of Americans, many of them on the conservative end of the political spectrum, are finally beginning to recognize the dangers of the imposition of religious law on civil society. We saw it in Afghanistan, and we still see it in Iran and Saudi Arabia (and, yes, to some extent in Israel). But somehow this awakening consciousness hasn't yet turned itself homeward. Whether it's Shari'ah or Halacha or Church Doctrine, we, as Americans, really must reject such impositions. We must prize and cherish our right to practice our individual religious precepts freely, to respect the rights of others to do the same, and to insist that no one even contemplate the codification of their religious precepts, as religious precepts, into our civil law. That's why even an avowed agnostic can proclaim "God bless America" without feeling compromised.
It's funny, but I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't believe that love should be able to transcend all boundaries. It's a hangover from my coming of age in the sixties, I guess, but my disillusionment with some of the other ideals I adopted during those years has never extended to this.
Love is an awfully odd thing to hate.
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*Thanks to Laura for the link to the Bush bull.
