BlueWolf's Howl

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November 06, 2004

Legal Binding

Whatever happened to the 'Separation of Church and State'??? Isn't that one of the guiding principles of our land? Didn't the early settlers come here because of religious persecution in their original homeland? Is there some vague, undefined national religion that nobody is admitting?

Jefferson must be rolling in his grave right now.

A Ban against Gay Marriage. Everyone can get married EXCEPT this one group of people. How is that not discrimination? Even if you don't believe that gays should marry...how can you say that it's not discrimination? You have to admit that at the very least, you're talking about what you think is 'justifiable' discrimination... But, that doesn't make sense to you, does it?

Does your brain hurt yet? Oh, it must...because you only have a choice between two ideas that both don't make sense to you. You can't think of gay + marriage in the same thought. You also can't think of justifiable + discrimination in the same thought, either. How can you justify it? You know discrimination is wrong... oh...yeah, let's just not think about it and point to the Bible. WAIT...you're making a LAW... What does the Bible have to do with LAW????

Perhaps we need to give it a new name or catch phrase? A word that doesn't have an emotional investment may make it easier to deal with. If we could change all the 'marriage' laws to read 'legal binding'.... then I'm sure that many more people could get behind ALL AMERICANS being allowed the process of 'legal binding'... The 'legal binding' of couples (regardless of the sex of the couple) would be something that I'm sure most Americans would support.

It's just this 'marriage' word. It conjures up visions of a Bride and Groom. We have expectations...images...traditions... It would be easier to change the meaning of Christmas.

But, somehow we need to get from here to there. I am an American. I don't skirt my civic duties. I pay taxes. I show up when called to jury duty. I am a veteran. I stop at red lights and stop signs. I don't hog the fast lane and don't tailgate. And I vote. But, if I wanted to marry someone... well, I can...but, ONLY if I wanted to marry a guy. As if it were just that easy.

Actually, it would be easy to marry a guy. I would have the backing of all of society. My mother would immediately start knitting baby blankets, caps and booties and waiting on her next grandchild. I make good money and 'our' combined income would be well over 6 figures. It wouldn't be hard to 'catch a guy'... I'm 'well-endowed' and with average looks and a good job...hey, piece of cake. I've already had offers. This is the easy way... by all appearances.

Think about that. Can you even begin to imagine what else must be driving me to take the 'hard' path? And it's not just sex. You can get sex anywhere. You can find a man to marry you that would looooove to let you have sex with a woman any time you want - especially if he can watch. It's quite a popular male fantasy. But, there's more....so much more.

So...why can't I get married? Oh yeah...that's right. I CAN. There are gay churches that will perform marriages - and even Bush recognized the MCC for its efforts. There are also other ministries and religions that will perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. Or we could invent our own ceremony with someone we respect to officiate. We would still be married. But only socially and emotionally. The only thing missing would be the LEGAL aspect of the marriage. We would still have to file separately and SINGLE on Federal tax forms.

You can't stop us from loving each other. No law could or would stop emotions. You can't stop us from having sex. [You can't even stop teens from having sex, much less stop consenting adults with greater resources...] And you can't stop us from getting married. We've been doing it for longer than you've known about it -- and you can't enact a law that prohibits any religion from performing any kind of marriage ceremony (the law can't legislate or direct religious activities). The only law you can pass is one that won't legally recognize it.

So what have you won out of this? Nothing. And it's not going to go away any time soon... We've got to find a way to get from here to there. All of us. Together.

Posted by BlueWolf on November 6, 2004 02:41 PM