Theocracy...FOR KIDS!

I can't tell if this blog is merely preaching to the choir or screaming at statues. I doubt I'm going to be changing your mind with this is my point, though I feel compelled just to give my two cents, or whatever the equivalent is with inflation.

Given that we are only a few months from another election (and yes, midterm elections are just as important as Presidential ones) it's time for us to roll out our favorite nonsense issues to distract people from the real ones which are not exciting or sexy enough. I should mention that this is not simply a strategy of the Republicans, though they certainly are adept at it. Just like in the last Presidential election when poor people were tricked into voting for the man who cuts taxes for the rich because otherwise a war veteran would welcome terrorists into the country with open arms and homosexuals would use their fairy wands to turn all of your children into slutty, drug-fueled transexuals.

So what's this year's issue? Much like the Da Vinci code, the Marriage Defense Amendment is now out in paperback and climbing the charts again. Before I get in to the actual argument, let me say this...why is this necessary? Much like Christmas, the political extreme is saying Marriage is under attack, because of gay marriage, and the only thing to stop it is an amendment to the Constitution. Given that gay marriage is banned in nearly the entire country, and that the states that do ban it won't recognize it even if you gays are married where it is legal, how is this a national issue? If a few gays being allowed to marry in one state is an attack, then it's like attacking China by starting a fire in a garbage can at one of their ports. The Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton no less, already allows every state to ban gay marriage and defy the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, so do we really need an Amendment? That's like saying we need an Amendment against Dinosaur attacks.

Here's the other issue...Amendments tend to protect certain rights so that laws can't be passed to infringe on them; freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to not work on a plantation for no money. Notably, the one Amendment that went so far as to tell us what rights we don't have was the fiasco now known as Prohibition, which was such a mistake that we had to pass a whole other Amendment to repeal it. If you want to pass laws, go nuts, but Constitutional Amendments are reserved for important things.

But they wouldn't want to do that. See, a Constitutional Amendment would never pass because it takes overwhelming support, and its hard to round-up overwhelming support for turning ten percent of the population into second-class citizens, especially when what they do has absolutely no effect on anyone else. A law could possibly squeak by and actually pass which would do two things...it would force Conservative judges, such as those on the Supreme Court, to actually judge the legal merits of gay marriage and conclude that there is no legal merit to a law banning it. Second, it would take away the issue as something that can be wheeled out every two years to distract people and rile an already decided base.

Here's the thing...this is the land of the free, is it not? So why are our laws more restrictive than nearly every other western democracy? We believe in free speech, but not on television during certain hours and on certain channels. We believe in seperation of church and state, unless of course the state tries to make decisions based on public health and safety or the will of the people instead of the Bible. We believe that government shouldn't interfere in our lives, except in the cases of your phone calls, your reproductive rights, and your marriage.

Some people are morally opposed to homosexuality and, you know what, let them be. If you believe that it's a sin, then don't do it and don't be friends with people who are gay (though also make sure you don't talk to people who eat pork or work on the sabbath, which are actually regarded as worse in both The Bible and The Torah) Here's the thing...you can't inflict your morals on others. Laws are meant to protect people from one another. You're free to fire a gun, but not at another person because that endangers them. You're free to say whatever you want, but not incite a riot because that endangers people. Two women wanting to live together and file taxes together endangers no one. It doesn't even effect anyone else. If two men got married tomorrow, would your parents divorce? Would your sister's marriage be invalidated? Would you be barred from ever dating a woman again? No, of course not. It would have no effect on your life or my life whatsoever. If marriage is under threat, it's under threat from celebrities like Britney Spears who get married multiple times and then divorced a few days later, making it just glorified dating. It's under threat from people who marry for money, or people who murder their spouses, or people who get married simply because they knocked someone up and spend the rest of their lives resenting and abusing their spouse and children.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED that Republicans are actually pro-promiscuity. They don't want homosexuals to enter into legally binding monogamous relationships. They would prefer that gay people be denied that option, encouraging them not to work through relationship problems that married people would to avoid divorce, but instead to just jump ship when things get rough and then date someone else. Given that neo-cons support abstinence till marriage, what they are saying is that, since gay people can't get married, then they might as well just tap as much booty as they can and not even consider having a serious relationship...because that would be an attack on heterosexuals.

Yes, marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman. It was also traditionally not between people of different races. It was also traditionally not based on love but on economic interests, class structure, or the arrangements of parents. Things change. We become more free, more reasoned. Opening marriage to homosexuals doesn't open a Pandora's Box to polygamy and beastiality. It simply extends freedom: the same freedom the rest of us have already. Would children be better-raised in a loving home with married parents regardless of their genders, or a house with two parents who don't love each other but live a lie because society prevents them from living as god created them?

Freedom comes to all eventually. In the long run, progress occurs, dictators always fall, and repression always fails. One day, gay people will marry just as us straight people will marry, and not only will it not hurt the institution of marriage, it will improve our society as a whole. Why wait for that day and continue to live in a dark age?