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For three years I have been trapped here in the center of one of the reddest of red states, surrounded by closed-minded theocrats who are so uptight that Osama Bin Laden would tell them to chill out, and I still don't understand why conservatives care about gay marriage. I know that biblically homosexuality is verboten, but so is working on Sunday and eating a cheeseburger, and you don't see any attempts to amend the constitution to outlaw Mcdonald's on the weekends. I also seem to recall a veritable plethora of things that ticked The Savior(tm) off that have yet to find their way to the ballot boxes. There was also that little thing about 'judge not lest you be judged yourself'. So what's so special about gay marriage?
As a theatre professional I have many gay friends on both sides of the gender fence, and the one thing I have noticed about gay relationships is that they tend to last much longer than straight ones. Perhaps it's the atmosphere of oppression, or the smaller dating pool, but most of the gay couples I know have been together, without the benefit of a legalized recognition of the union, for years. About the only downside to gay couples I have seen is that on the rare occasion of a bad break-up, they do have a tendency to beat the living crap out of each other. (my totally unscientific theory on that is that men and women are raised to not physically attack each other, but members of our own genders are fair game)
The only thing I can figure about why conservatives fear gay marriage is just that...fear. I have seen huge guys act like scared 5-year-old girls when they realize someone is gay. I have heard such witty and considered commentary as, "If that fag touches me I'll knock his lights out!". It's like these idiots think that homosexuality is some sort of pathogen that can be passed on like the flu. Every year it becomes clearer, through genetic and neurological research, that homosexuality is no more an aberration than left-handedness. High profile theologians like to say that being gay is a choice. I have to wonder just how many gay people they have actually spoken with. I think I can say, with a high degree of certainty, that if choice were the issue very few homosexuals would choose to be discriminated against, oppressed, physically abused, and ridiculed just because of who they love. Sure, there is a very small, very visual minority of the gay community who do their best to piss off the straights, but then there is a very small, very visual minority of evangelists who do their best to piss off the world.(the Louisiana College Board of Trustees, for example) It's time that the Bible thumpers started reading the whole Book, instead of just the passages that support their own particular agendas. Live and let live, and leave the judging to God.
2 comments:
I think it should be obvious to everyone by now that most of what goes on within religious institutions and surrounding religiously-based issues in society at large really doesn't have anything to do with the spiritual aspect of religion at all. There is so much poverty and suffering in the world that a truly fruitful Christian ought not to have so much time left in their day as to attack a statistically minor event like homosexuality. Let them go take care of the Tsunami victims; that'll keep 'em busy enough to shut up.
Sex, being such a primal part of the human psyche, affects the way people live their lives in general. It's a lot like fear that way; certain traumas can lead to life-altering conditions like agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and so on. What's going on here is that authoritarian influences are constantly harping on issues of sexuality in order to essentially brainwash people and transform them into subservient little robots. Control people's primal emotions, and you can shape the world they will create with their everyday behaviour. Male sexual jealousy and possessiveness, for example, gets its political lobbying done in the form of anti-abortion legislation, pharmacists withholding birth control, and abstinence-only education.
Honestly, I think that there's a lot of pathology to be found in most people's sexuality. Social issues like these which may appear incomprehensible to slightly more well-adjusted people are merely the aggregate effects of millions of people being fucked up.
Ah yes, I keep making the mistake of trying to apply logic to motivations totally devoid of such. ;-)
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