Love And Marriage

It is a fallacy, a piece of ignorant fluff, that says there can be no love between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Besides the knowledge that sons love fathers and daughters love mothers, the simple fact remains that our essence, our soul if you will, is not a function of the shell we inhabit. Our personality, our fears, our drives, our emotions, may be connected to our physical form through the mechanisms of biology and evolution, but they are not us. If it's true that an immortal soul can be brought into existence with our birth, then how can that self-same soul be made a slave to a physical form it had no knowledge of? No. We are not a product of our gender, any more than we are a product of our skin color, or the God we do -- or do not -- worship. These things are are mere affectations, fleetingly attached to our true selves for the few years we stumble across the stage before the world.

Marriage is another affectation, a convenience and creation of men. It exists to bind together in law and dogma two people, and throughout history it was mostly a man and a woman. It was a means to an end, a justification for and celebration of misogyny, a binding of a woman in subservience to a man, a completion of a deal for passing a woman from one man (her father) to another man (her husband). Called a sacrament and draped in sanctity, it might be celebrated as one of the defining moments of a person's life, and, indeed, there is much to be said for declaring that one person is enough for you for your eternity on Earth, but we can never forget from whence it came, and call into question just how spiritually liberating the practice known as marriage is... until now.

Now, with the pursuit of equality for all Americans, outlined in the continued advance of the right to same-sex marriage, this old, stilted, and somewhat bedraggled ceremony is gaining a new birth of sanctity. For when we declare, triumphantly, that it matters not what form two human beings take, that they love and commit to each other "forever," we breathe new life into vows to love, honor, and cherish, and we admit that our knowledge of the world extends much further than it did when our ancestors first brought the practice into being.

There are those who rail against this new birth, guardians of "sacred" dogma, clinging to a past long surpassed by the forward flow of humanity over the face of this planet and into the black sky above. Our capacity for reason and knowledge tells us that there is no shame in faith, save where that faith seeks to invalidate truth or impose itself on others. In this case, truth is not easily dismissed. To allow the decrepitude of a paternalistic, bigoted past to live within the human milieu is to willingly carry a cancer that will continue to threaten the health of us all. Let no person be denigrated for their belief, save that we hold forth some pity for them, that they cannot see the forest for the trees. In the inevitability of human evolution, there will be those left behind, and they will mark dying branches on our family tree.

They said that a man and a woman of different religions could not marry, that it would destroy us -- they were wrong. They said that a man and a woman of different races could not marry, that it would destroy us -- they were wrong. They say now that a man cannot marry a man, nor woman marry a woman, that it will destroy us -- they are most definitely, wrong.

We Get It

Yeah, we get it.

You hate homosexuals.

Yes… you. The narrow-minded, Bible-verse-flinging, ignorant, spiteful, fear-mongering segment of the population that views the idea of people loving people of the same sex so abhorrent, that if you could get away with it, you’d no doubt tie them to stakes and set them ablaze.

You, who are so uncomfortable with the idea of people being different, that you would do anything in your power to deny them the peace of mind and solace you believe is rightfully yours, and yours alone. You, the ultra-conservative, who cannot grasp that the planet has turned a corner into a new millennium, and that the old ways can no longer support human society. We need new ways of thinking, new ideas, not the old, moldy words of people drenched in fear for their life and fear of those who were not of their tribe.

You will not grow. You will not change. You will not open your heart or your mind to possibilities. You live in the staid, sedentary, somnolent backwater of modern society, afraid that “they” will ruin your way of life, take away your freedom, and somehow desecrate all you hold dear.

I have news for you: you have done far more to desecrate your way of life than anyone. You wield your beliefs as a sword, hacking away at anything than offends your “morality.” You claim some type of divine superiority through your faith, a faith based on hypocrisy and ignorance of the words of your own savior. Anything you do not understand or subscribe to is an “abomination,” to be given as little regard as the dust.

You will stand there, in your apocalyptically-driven glory, and claim that you have “nothing against gays,” even as you seek to fund those who would keep them down, keep them in line, and defend your way-of-life by equating them with all the ills of the world.

You hate them.

Not hate in the manner of holocaust, but a low-grade, simmering hate, never spoken, never voiced, never revealed overtly, but clearly written in action and deed. You paper the hate over with a veneer of morality and community service, but this cannot keep your true feelings from leaking out beneath the facade. You will stand and deny human beings rights, because it offends you to think that they could be happy, too. You spout rhetoric about “family values,” even as you cheat on spouses. You would “defend” marriage, even as you trample upon it with your mistresses. You would claim that marriage is a solemn connection between a man and a woman, when it is more the connection between a man and a slave.

So yes, once more you have managed to deny gays the right to marry. New York, New Jersey, Maine, California… you may sit there, smug and self-righteous, proud of yourselves, but know this: your day is coming. Those of us who value freedom, individuality, and prefer tolerance to ignorance will gather our force of will, and we will drive back the demons. We will supplant you. We will cast the pure light of humanity on your piteous and baleful forms, and drive you back under the rocks from whence you crawled.

There will be liberty and justice, for all.

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NOTE: After writing this, I came to find this wonderful video of NY Senator Diane Savino addressing the State Senate before voting on the gay marriage act that was defeated by a 38-22 vote. It says with poignancy and dignity, what I wrote with righteous anger and frustration.

Just Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

In human sexual reproduction, it takes a male sperm and a female egg uniting to begin the process that eventually leads to the birth of a child. Male and female contribute copies of their personal genome, they are stirred together, and out comes a related but different genetic code, which takes the best (and sometimes the worst) of the parental code, to create a unique new life. It is an amazing process, that ensures the continuation of the human species by diversifying and extending it, creating new features and new facilities in the process. The continuation of human life is beautiful.

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.