Angry Straight Man
First, off-topic, let me say Keith Olbermann is my favorite jock turned nerd political commentator, and I always enjoy his Special Comments. I've also been recently enjoying watching Rachel Maddow with Elise. Maddow, coincidentally, happens to be gay. The following rant is part inspired by his latest special comment (linked to me by [title of show]), and part inspired by Rachel's post on her new blog, Alas, I Digress.
We are in the midst of a crisis. The crisis of a small minority of people, trying to change the law in a way that hurts the rest of us. I'm talking about the crisis of people trying to redefine marriage. Marriage has always been the union of two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. But, some people want to redefine marriage, pervading its meaning to a more contorted version of marriage, that specifies which subset of the population can marry which other subsets of the population. You see, life is complicated enough without imposing more caveats to the relatively simple notion of marriage.
I'm not a lawyer (not that there's anything wrong with that). So I'm sure legally, you could make some arguments as to why my argument doesn't make sense. Similarly, you could make arguments appealing to the Bible, as many do. But the thing that it keeps coming down to is: what does it matter to you? I could see the point, if at the end of everything you traded in your marriage for market value, and since gay marriage existed, a traditional marriage might be worth less. But that's not the case. Marriage is an intensely personal relationship between two people. More than anything else, it is a social construct. I welcome everyone to define their own marriage in a manner fitting to their own personal culture. Hence, if you don't like gay marriage, don't get one. The related legal ramifications of marriage are however, at the crux of the matter, and that is simply a matter of equal protection under the law.
The whole thing bugs me for three reasons: 1) It's profoundly unjust 2) I have lots of gay friends 3) It suddenly doesn't seem too long ago that Anti-miscegenation laws were all the rage. Pop quiz: what do my parents, Obama's parents and I all have in common? If you guessed interracial marriage, you win! The idea of outlawing marriage based on what people look like is as ridiculous as basing it on reproductive roles. And as my soon to be wife mentioned, what's to keep another Proposition 8 outlawing interracial marriages from getting put on the ballot? It too was legal for some period of time.
Ultimately, I feel like this is a temporary setback. A horribly unjust setback. Much like Jim Crow laws, Japanese internment and the lack of women's suffrage, bans on interracial marriage will ultimately be seen as backwards and blemishes on America's ideals. In the history of America, I cannot think of one instance where a group of disenfranchised citizens had their rights permanently curtailed. In the end, I take the optimistic outlook, hoping that some day, this injustice too will become another chapter in the history of civil rights struggles that were ultimately won.
We are in the midst of a crisis. The crisis of a small minority of people, trying to change the law in a way that hurts the rest of us. I'm talking about the crisis of people trying to redefine marriage. Marriage has always been the union of two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. But, some people want to redefine marriage, pervading its meaning to a more contorted version of marriage, that specifies which subset of the population can marry which other subsets of the population. You see, life is complicated enough without imposing more caveats to the relatively simple notion of marriage.
I'm not a lawyer (not that there's anything wrong with that). So I'm sure legally, you could make some arguments as to why my argument doesn't make sense. Similarly, you could make arguments appealing to the Bible, as many do. But the thing that it keeps coming down to is: what does it matter to you? I could see the point, if at the end of everything you traded in your marriage for market value, and since gay marriage existed, a traditional marriage might be worth less. But that's not the case. Marriage is an intensely personal relationship between two people. More than anything else, it is a social construct. I welcome everyone to define their own marriage in a manner fitting to their own personal culture. Hence, if you don't like gay marriage, don't get one. The related legal ramifications of marriage are however, at the crux of the matter, and that is simply a matter of equal protection under the law.
The whole thing bugs me for three reasons: 1) It's profoundly unjust 2) I have lots of gay friends 3) It suddenly doesn't seem too long ago that Anti-miscegenation laws were all the rage. Pop quiz: what do my parents, Obama's parents and I all have in common? If you guessed interracial marriage, you win! The idea of outlawing marriage based on what people look like is as ridiculous as basing it on reproductive roles. And as my soon to be wife mentioned, what's to keep another Proposition 8 outlawing interracial marriages from getting put on the ballot? It too was legal for some period of time.
Ultimately, I feel like this is a temporary setback. A horribly unjust setback. Much like Jim Crow laws, Japanese internment and the lack of women's suffrage, bans on interracial marriage will ultimately be seen as backwards and blemishes on America's ideals. In the history of America, I cannot think of one instance where a group of disenfranchised citizens had their rights permanently curtailed. In the end, I take the optimistic outlook, hoping that some day, this injustice too will become another chapter in the history of civil rights struggles that were ultimately won.