As beautiful as it is, the events leading up to human sexual reproduction have become problematic. Humans seem to have developed a sexual schizophrenia, at one time impelled by instinct and hormonal desire to engage in sexual union, while at the same time seeking to implore ourselves to avoid sexual congress and placing limitations on what is considered "proper." Some segments of society have freed themselves from the clinging mores of puritanical belief, while others indulge in the desire to control all aspects of sexuality and its by-products, to ensure it only occurs in alignment with their moral code. Rules have been written, cruelly enforced, then cast off in bursts of societal frenzy, as men and women tried to cope with changes to their world.
Inevitably, this has led to clashes on so many fronts. It has wound its way into so many aspects of human society, from marriage to child-rearing, into religion, and even politics. In the end, our inability to compromise, to let each person choose, as they may, how they will express their sexuality, has led to some of the greatest "debate" in our modern times. It pits state against citizen, family against congregation, child against parent.
Our nation was conceived as a place where its citizens could fulfill their dreams of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," without the undue influence of government. While some regulation must be made, to provide for the safety of all, how the individual chooses to explore and ultimately express their sexuality should not become a battleground for morality. Like so much of life, belief and how one lives one's life is up to the individual, and while society has a right to expect that members of certain groups will not be allowed to force their way of life onto others, such it is that society cannot arbitrarily decide to impress itself on certain groups. Our government was given a mandate by the Founders, expressed through the Bill of Rights, that the individual should be protected at all costs, even to the extent of overriding the desire of the majority of citizens.
This treading of the fine line between individual liberty and American society is starkly silhouetted in the debate over the right of gays to marry. Marriage, which started as a religious bonding ceremony, became a state-sponsored means of generating revenue, and has now become it's own industry, stands as the bulwark from behind which, the forces of intolerance seek to reduce gays from citizens into stereotypes. Religious leaders, politicians, and their teeming masses of followers continue a pernicious campaign of trying to convince the bulk of the American citizenry that while equal rights are fine for for everyone else, those with an "improper" sexual orientation should not fall under that umbrella. Somehow, because the result of the union of a man with a man or a woman with a woman cannot lead naturally to children, that makes the idea of gays being bonded in mutual love abhorrent.
Such beliefs show that human society is still mired in its past, even as it surges into the Information Age. Dragging along the dead weight of outdated concepts slows our progress, forces us to relive and re-fight battles that should no longer need to be fought. Every few decades, we are forced to endure a new revolution, a new birth of conflict, as those who continue to sow the bitter fruit of conformity to the dead ideas of the past make war on the new enlightenment of the day. Human society looks to break free of its past, but there are those bent on chaining it down, forcing it accede to their dusty, moldy thoughts.
It is not enough to see people as they are, but that they are defined, and in so being, channeled into the appropriate paths, even if those paths take them away from society as a whole, to strand them in backwater slums, where they can go about their business without having to be seen. Let them do what they will, but let them do it out of sight, where "decent" people do not have to be exposed to it.
To allow homosexuals to marry would be an indignity, in the eyes of some. It would mean the State endorses their way of life, by providing them equal rights and equal protection. It would lessen the meaning of marriage, turn it from prized possession to common commodity, even though that turn happened long ago, in the birth of the "wedding-industrial complex," wherein weddings were made into expensive and lavish affairs, though little thought was given to the actual health of the relationship.
There is no actual harm to "marriage," either as actuality or concept. If homosexuals can marry, then there are new markets for suppliers, new fees to be collected by the State, and potentially homes for children who have no one to care for them. Why should it be so hard to accept that love can exist between people of the same gender, when love is a function of the brain and not the body? And is not marriage the ultimate expression of love between two people? Doesn't the world need more love, not less?
Old prejudices dies hard. It far easier to stay within the confines of the rickety house that is Old World belief, than to step into the sunlight that bathes those who walk among the hills and valleys of tolerance and reason. It is more comforting to stay steadfastly wedded to beliefs that cannot withstand the touch of logic, than to admit that reality is far easier to understand and tolerate when it is accepted as a natural phenomenon. Why see things through new eyes, when the dull and dirty glasses of ignorance fit so well?
Eventually, the forces of intolerance, those whose beliefs will yield only to death, are passed by, swept out by the tide of change. Human society has broken free of its chains many times before, and even now, strains against its newest restraints, which groan under the load and weaken imperceptibly every second, until one day they will snap. The gay community cannot and will not be denied their right forever, and one can only hope when the day comes that enlightened society installs them forever in their rightful place, that it will be the last time we allow ourselves to be tied to ignorance and prejudice.
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