TYING THE KNOT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND MARRIAGE
"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
We’re welcoming the dark ages of theocrazy and church dictatorship again; the survival technique I endorse is transformation into a robot.
Listen, you ever wish you could process numbers as quickly as a calculator? Just see some wild arrangement of digits, make some sense out of them with a quick scan, and then use whatever mathematical operation to change the values around.
I can teach you how. You just practice with people first. Here’s a quick exercise for you to try out. Visualize a huge crowd of peasant women. You’re a witch-hunter. You’re thinking, “How do I know which witch is which?” This is problematic and not very calculator-like. That’s like seeing 20323429576 and going through each number and reciting its name in your head. Instead, you should think “They’re all women; therefore, all potential witches.” Then you apply kerosene and torches. Voila, your job is done: no more witches!
That made me shudder to type. I think it’s time for a change of topic, away from the idea of women writhing in flames. We need a lighter topic, so instead of murder, let’s talk relaxation.
Visualize a population of people. You’re a president. You’re thinking, “How do I get these motherfuckers to listen to me as I speak the word of God?” Because you’ve recently heard that God doesn’t think non-believers should get to enjoy Sunday. Instead of loafing about in public parks or restaurants, they should be mowing God’s lawn. And even though Sunday is an entirely social, human concept of time, which is yet another entirely social, human concept; it’s name is linked by dead people to God, and you’re president, so it’s under your domain, you lucky bastard.
Again, your technique is inefficient. Instead, you should think “They’re all humans; therefore, all potential sinners.” Then you apply an amendment to the Constitution. Voila, your job is done: they all have to listen now!--no matter how ignorant or blasphemous.
I’m atheist, so that was depressing to type. We need a happier topic, so instead of slavery, let’s talk marriage.
Actually, marriage is already mechanical enough; I probably don’t need to go through it here. Everyone knows what marriage is: A legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife. If you can tell man-boobs from breasts, you’re all set to control the population of this “Christian nation”. But this is wicked fun for me, so I’ll explain it anyways.
We’re not numbers, and we’re not just people. We’re alive, thriving, suffering-human beings. If you’re content to be a chip in the system, an automaton, then you don’t need idiosyncrasy. Words, luckily, have plenty of quirks: definitions, synonyms, antonyms. As does marriage. A marriage isn’t just something between a man and a woman.
To all those who are happily married, happily in love, with warm families and candlelight dinners, marriage isn't just some technicality, some legality between a "man," faceless and about as human as a stick figure; and a "woman", the anti-man who must be capable of at least one of the following: childbearing, menstruation, breast growth, penis envy.
Marriage is a living, loving, intimate union of two individuals; “a mystery of the mingling of souls,” powerful, profound, sacred. The boundary of exclusivity shouldn’t cross between homosexual and heterosexual, black and white; it should simply circle around two people, like white gold around the ring finger.
So anybody uninvolved who might think to interfere should just fuck off. Yeah, go home, whip out your fleshtube or vibe, and let them enjoy their lives in peace.
They deserve it. We all do, for managing to survive beyond a mere subsistence, to find meaning despite the constant flood of receipts, advertisements, disappointments. Couples, no matter their orientation, are couples because of who they are together, what they’ve been through together, where they’re hoping to go-- together. If marriage is what they want, they deserve it just as much as Mr. and Mrs. Huckabee.
"Protect marriage" is the religious right’s message; and it is one I fully agree with. Protect what marriage is to human beings, what marriage means, idealizes, signifies, glorifies, sanctifies. Marriage isn't meant to separate. It stands so that people can unite―unite, as love, as god, as our country intended.
Protect the ideals of committing yourself to another; that this person is, out of 6 other billion in the world, the one for you; the one you imagine the rest of your life with; the one, your only. And this person is for you, and you only, to decide.
That is freedom. Freedom of the will. To truly be free is to break from the shackles of obligation, fear, oppression, control, inferiority, slavery. Freedom is what we espouse, but liberty and charity are sorely lacking when a union of two people, no matter what race, sex, religious affiliation, is seen as dangerous rather than ideal. It’s dangerous to the point where the government seeks to interfere, then rearrange. Rearrange the numbers, meddle with the people.
Then again, freedom has always been seen as a threat-- especially when it involves love, which is, by nature, uncontrollable. Suddenly other people don't have as much control over the married couple; and neither can the government, the draft, the wanton arbitration of parents, teachers, pastors, institutions-- suddenly the couple is impervious to these pressures. Why? Because they have each other, are in love, are free.
Ultimately, one person’s freedom corresponds to everybody else's freedom―who can ever ethically support segregated freedom? But in this current political climate where 47% of us are in favor of taking people's rights away by what is essentially force, and 11% are undecided; it would be preposterous to think ourselves already free. Goethe, the author of Faustus, in which a man makes a pact with the devil, warned us: "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."
Deny some of us the right to marry, the right to live as joined, as devoted, faithful, in love-- no matter in whose eyes, glad or damning or perhaps just jealous―and you break people apart. Breaking them into scattered pieces drifting from city to city, lover to lover; just pieces now, left to the storms and tides of the world, to be collected like income taxes, to be used like toilet paper, to be burned dry like gasoline.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
We’re welcoming the dark ages of theocrazy and church dictatorship again; the survival technique I endorse is transformation into a robot.
Listen, you ever wish you could process numbers as quickly as a calculator? Just see some wild arrangement of digits, make some sense out of them with a quick scan, and then use whatever mathematical operation to change the values around.
I can teach you how. You just practice with people first. Here’s a quick exercise for you to try out. Visualize a huge crowd of peasant women. You’re a witch-hunter. You’re thinking, “How do I know which witch is which?” This is problematic and not very calculator-like. That’s like seeing 20323429576 and going through each number and reciting its name in your head. Instead, you should think “They’re all women; therefore, all potential witches.” Then you apply kerosene and torches. Voila, your job is done: no more witches!
That made me shudder to type. I think it’s time for a change of topic, away from the idea of women writhing in flames. We need a lighter topic, so instead of murder, let’s talk relaxation.
Visualize a population of people. You’re a president. You’re thinking, “How do I get these motherfuckers to listen to me as I speak the word of God?” Because you’ve recently heard that God doesn’t think non-believers should get to enjoy Sunday. Instead of loafing about in public parks or restaurants, they should be mowing God’s lawn. And even though Sunday is an entirely social, human concept of time, which is yet another entirely social, human concept; it’s name is linked by dead people to God, and you’re president, so it’s under your domain, you lucky bastard.
Again, your technique is inefficient. Instead, you should think “They’re all humans; therefore, all potential sinners.” Then you apply an amendment to the Constitution. Voila, your job is done: they all have to listen now!--no matter how ignorant or blasphemous.
I’m atheist, so that was depressing to type. We need a happier topic, so instead of slavery, let’s talk marriage.
Actually, marriage is already mechanical enough; I probably don’t need to go through it here. Everyone knows what marriage is: A legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife. If you can tell man-boobs from breasts, you’re all set to control the population of this “Christian nation”. But this is wicked fun for me, so I’ll explain it anyways.
We’re not numbers, and we’re not just people. We’re alive, thriving, suffering-human beings. If you’re content to be a chip in the system, an automaton, then you don’t need idiosyncrasy. Words, luckily, have plenty of quirks: definitions, synonyms, antonyms. As does marriage. A marriage isn’t just something between a man and a woman.
To all those who are happily married, happily in love, with warm families and candlelight dinners, marriage isn't just some technicality, some legality between a "man," faceless and about as human as a stick figure; and a "woman", the anti-man who must be capable of at least one of the following: childbearing, menstruation, breast growth, penis envy.
Marriage is a living, loving, intimate union of two individuals; “a mystery of the mingling of souls,” powerful, profound, sacred. The boundary of exclusivity shouldn’t cross between homosexual and heterosexual, black and white; it should simply circle around two people, like white gold around the ring finger.
So anybody uninvolved who might think to interfere should just fuck off. Yeah, go home, whip out your fleshtube or vibe, and let them enjoy their lives in peace.
They deserve it. We all do, for managing to survive beyond a mere subsistence, to find meaning despite the constant flood of receipts, advertisements, disappointments. Couples, no matter their orientation, are couples because of who they are together, what they’ve been through together, where they’re hoping to go-- together. If marriage is what they want, they deserve it just as much as Mr. and Mrs. Huckabee.
"Protect marriage" is the religious right’s message; and it is one I fully agree with. Protect what marriage is to human beings, what marriage means, idealizes, signifies, glorifies, sanctifies. Marriage isn't meant to separate. It stands so that people can unite―unite, as love, as god, as our country intended.
Protect the ideals of committing yourself to another; that this person is, out of 6 other billion in the world, the one for you; the one you imagine the rest of your life with; the one, your only. And this person is for you, and you only, to decide.
That is freedom. Freedom of the will. To truly be free is to break from the shackles of obligation, fear, oppression, control, inferiority, slavery. Freedom is what we espouse, but liberty and charity are sorely lacking when a union of two people, no matter what race, sex, religious affiliation, is seen as dangerous rather than ideal. It’s dangerous to the point where the government seeks to interfere, then rearrange. Rearrange the numbers, meddle with the people.
Then again, freedom has always been seen as a threat-- especially when it involves love, which is, by nature, uncontrollable. Suddenly other people don't have as much control over the married couple; and neither can the government, the draft, the wanton arbitration of parents, teachers, pastors, institutions-- suddenly the couple is impervious to these pressures. Why? Because they have each other, are in love, are free.
Ultimately, one person’s freedom corresponds to everybody else's freedom―who can ever ethically support segregated freedom? But in this current political climate where 47% of us are in favor of taking people's rights away by what is essentially force, and 11% are undecided; it would be preposterous to think ourselves already free. Goethe, the author of Faustus, in which a man makes a pact with the devil, warned us: "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."
Deny some of us the right to marry, the right to live as joined, as devoted, faithful, in love-- no matter in whose eyes, glad or damning or perhaps just jealous―and you break people apart. Breaking them into scattered pieces drifting from city to city, lover to lover; just pieces now, left to the storms and tides of the world, to be collected like income taxes, to be used like toilet paper, to be burned dry like gasoline.