Bittersweet

[xkiss_my_lipsx]

It's hard to remain as happy as I was 12 hours ago. To me, the country took a giant step forward in electing Barack Obama as our next president, but a giant step backwards was also taken, when California voted yes to Proposition 8. The law repeals the legalization of gay marriage in that state and defines marriage as between a man and a woman

Comments

[xkiss_my_lipsx]

It's not that I'm not supporting the whole democratic part of it. While I don't believe that a decision this large should be left up to the states (I have a feeling that having all these states with different definitions of marriage is just going to end up snowballing in the same way that slavery did), it has been, and the people have spoken, and good for them for getting what they want. The point of that comment is not about democracy, it's about the deeper, intangible ideals that America was founded on.

We live in a country which prides itself of giving rights and freedoms to its people- we have a whole freaking Bill devoted to it, and have had countless people die for it- and by passing Proposition 8 we're doing something completely Un-American: taking away the right to gay marriage, a right which was previously granted. To me, this goes against everything we stand for, and everything we've fought for.

I never disagreed with you guys on the legal grounds of this; that DEFINITELY would have made me a hypocrite. This just feels wrong on so many other levels.

[satanic_owl]

It's unfortunate but true that our society works under the principle of collective will - you have no rights except for those that are agreed upon by general consensus. Read Rousseau, he explains the concept pretty well. As American citizens, we implicity agree to subject ourselves to the will of the electorate. Prop 8, as well as similar gay marriage bans just passed in Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida, seem to indicate that it's the general will of the population that gay couples not be granted the right to marriage.

Is that right? Is that fair? technically, no. But that's the way things work here. The ideal system, I guess, is to ban federally-endorsed marraige outright, gay or straight. See, the problem is that "marriage" carries with it an implication of religion - most major world religions see marriage as a sacrament or something with real spiritual significance. So, to allow gay marriage means, to most people, that there is some implication of religious approva, and religion (Christianity, at least) frowns upon homosexuality. Thus, the debate. To me, it's not so much about persecuting homosexuals as it is about keeping them out of religion.

The solution, I think, is to separate church and state from the marriage question, get rid of marriage entirely as a government function. Civil unions for everyone, gay or straight. Turn it into a legal contract, with divorce carrying with it the typical legal consequences of invalidating a contract. If you want to be married, on top of your civil union, then ask your church. I doubt most gay couples are looking for religious approval anyway. This'll probably never come to pass, but it's the real fair way to deal with the issue, I think.

[xkiss_my_lipsx]

I really hate to say this, but that's fucking genius, Matt.

[satanic_owl]

See, us nutjob right-wingers aren't always wrong.