'Sanctity of Marriage'? My ass.

DATELINE: WITH MY DICTIONARY, DEFINING HYPOCRISY:

Last night, while watching the baseball game, I was inundated… nay, assaulted, every twenty minutes by some broad telling me that it was okay to oppose gay marriage, that it did not mean I was prejudiced or a bigot, and that the 'definition of marriage' must not be changed. I was told about the ‘sanctity of marriage’ and how children do so much better in a home with a mom and a dad. I was told that marriage was about future generations. If I had a baseball bat anywhere near me, I probably would have, after the first three or four times, used it to smash the damned tv set. Thank God for remotes with mute buttons.


I have been watching this campaign for months, every time I turn on the television, open up a newspaper to read, surf the internet. For the life of me, I cannot understand what the hell the big deal is.


Marriage is many different things to many different cultures, so let’s start with the basics. By definition, marriage is a social union and/or legal contract between two people called ‘spouses’, that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by society. 'Sanctity' means holiness, saintliness, sacred – to sanctify something is to make it legitimate, justify it, observe as holy and purified. It means one thing in a religious context, another in a legal context. There have been arranged marriages, convenient marriages, especially when looking for citizenship, and polygamous marriages. There are marriages where the ‘weaker’ partner is considered as nothing more than chattel.


In a marriage where there is an abusive partner, how does this benefit the raising of children? In a marriage where the parents are more concerned about social appearance, how does this benefit the raising of children? How about the one where the dad is an alcoholic but the mother is too scared to leave? Or the one where one of the parents brings home their latest fling? Are these nurturing environments? When dad is downing his fifth beer before supper, and mom is throwing a plate at his head, is this still a 'holy union'? When a celebrity is married for a week, what happens to the sanctity of that marriage? If a man has had a vasectomy, or one of the couple is unable to procreate, does someone forbid them from marrying? If not, the argument about the children is at best insulting, but more to the point, it is asinine. It is not the fact that there is a mother and a father in the home to raise a child that makes the difference. It is the fact that the child is raised in a nurturing environment of love.


It is disconcerting when people will hide behind quoted chapter and verse to justify their unfounded hatred. Yes, that is the word for it. If a man loves another man, or a woman loves another woman, how does that in any way impact anyone else’s marriage or the definition thereof? You can’t support a constitution that defends the separation of church and state, then turn to the state to impose laws (on others who are different than you) that are based on religious dogma. You cannot argue about freedom of religion, then demand that everyone in the land pledge allegiance to only your God. You cannot say that gay marriage is offensive and should not be allowed to happen, then claim in the same breath that you are not prejudiced.


I look at couples walking though the mall and wonder what they saw in each other… but it was not my right to tell them who they could marry. We don’t ‘pick’ love. Love is love, and is what God supposedly is about, so how can anyone who believes in God say that He would like those who have a different lifestyle to be struck down.


Getting access and familial rights to loved ones is based on social structure. If you want to be with your loved one when they are dying, you need to be able to prove you are kin. If you want information regarding an accident, you need to prove you are kin. In times of emergency, when you want those whom you love beside you, it is not the time to be denying this same right based on the fact that ‘marriage is sacred’. Yes, there is a need to protect people’s personal privacy, but there then has to be a way to allow those who love us, who commit to us, who are in every way married to us, to be able to be with us without question. Why is this something everyone, especially anyone who claims to hold God and His love in their hearts, would want to deny? The current situation is cruel… it is discriminatory, and it is wrong. It is also just one of the many rights we take for granted that are denied to gay couples… because of our hatred; our misguided, ignorant hatred, of something that is different than that we have.


Our laws and society are based, to a large degree, on the ancient Romans and Greeks. Historically, they too were opposed to same sex relationships… sort of. In both ancient societies, it was ‘wrong’ for a man to have sexual relationships with another ‘equal’ man. It was perfectly fine to have sex with a younger man/boy, with a servant, with someone who was of a lower standing than you. It was a power thing, because as long as you were the ‘screwer’, it was cool – a lot like how things are dealt with in Rome now, ain’t it. As long as you were the one wielding the power, the one with the authority, it didn’t matter who you had sex with; it was fine. It was all in the fine print of the day… sort of like how the constitution guaranteed equal rights to all ‘free’ men. Homosexuality is not a disease, it is not a perversion, and it definitely is not new, so why do we all act like it is? It's been running rampant in the Vatican for centuries.


I am not angry, but I am frustrated about this issue. I don’t see why we would want to deprive anyone of love from whatever source it comes. We need more love… we need a hell of a lot more love. Why are we so threatened about what marriage is that we have to ‘lock’ the definition on it. Our language is a living language. Words and ideologies evolve every day, so why put the shackles on something that is supposed to be 100% based on love and respect, then add absolutely unattainable ideals to that word? The concept of marriage has evolved for centuries, and for the most part each change has been for the better. I’m glad we don’t pay for wives anymore. I’m glad that marriages are no longer nothing more than an addendum to a business merger, or contingent on a monetary transaction. Love is not about skin color, religion or gender. Freedom and human rights should not be about those things either.


If marriage is so damned special, if it is so sacred, so wonderful, then why in the hell would we not want to share it with everyone? It's sad, unbelievable, that what is supposed to be a loving, intelligent society still harbors such profound, unfounded hatred.


“I promise to be true to you in good times, and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”


These are the vows that I took, in a Catholic Church. This is the essence of any marriage. I see no reason to deprive anyone the right to make the same vow of love.

DAILY NEWS - May 29th, 2012

DATELINE: TURNING ON THE JUICE TO THE ELECTRIC FENCE -- I have a great idea! Let’s build a giant fence, 100 or maybe 150 miles long, and put all the assholes like Pastor Charles Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church near Maiden, NC inside it. We will drop Bibles to them, so they have something to thump on as they spew hatred. Let’s electrify the fence to keep them in and in a couple years they will be dead, and we can celebrate THAT. While we’re at it, let’s throw some despots in there too, the Putins and the Assads, the world leaders who care not one flying fuck about people but only about their power and authority. You see, these people all have one thing in common – they are ruled by their intolerance and hatred, guised in a flag or the pages of Bible. They spin the truth, put words into others mouths for the sake of promoting their own agendas. The two groups… the despots and the religious radicals… really have more in common than most would expect. They live for rhetoric, the sound bite, the glorious God-given justification for their lies and confirmation of their own greatness and perfection. Alternately, we could be like the United Nations, shake our fingers, click our tongues in shame, and do sweet fuck all about problems that need to be dealt with. Their sanctimonious condemnation of the massacres in Syria are nothing more than what a manipulated mother might give to a petulant child, the final step before sending them to the time-out chair for five minutes. For over a year, we have watched with our collective thumbs up our asses, waiting for someone to do something to help the people of Syria -- you remember them? The ones who get shot for walking out their front fucking door? The actual fact of the matter is that the UN is entirely feckless, perfecting the art of kissing Putin’s anus on demand, letting him run amok in whatever other country he decides to flex his muscles. Of course he supports the Assad regime… just like he supports Ahmedinejad and Chavez… openly, unabashedly, proudly. Unless and until the countries on the Security Counsel take their jobs seriously, without the political agenda that should NOT color any aspect of the United Nations, the entire body will remain nothing more than a sick, pathetic, ineffective joke. The organization is about equal rights and respect for humanity, and if they cannot manage that simple, straightforward task, then close the fucking doors and stop pumping millions of dollars into it... money that can certainly be used for more substantial, proactive purposes, like providing food or water for the impoverished. At what point, amidst the hatred, the killing, the lying, the vitriolic paranoia, do we stand up to church and national leaders and say ‘Enough!’? At what point do we say to the Putin’s of the world ‘No, it is not okay to storm into the sovereign nation of Georgia to flex your political muscles,” or “Yes, we in the international community do have a problem with the poisoning of political leaders in order to prevent them from being elected.”? When to do go to Rome and say 'No, you cannot police yourselves because you believe you are above all laws, especially those involving the abuse of children'? (The irony, of course, of the religious position regarding gays is that, by their silence in regard to clergy moleting and sexually abusing little boys, and their pimping out of semenarians -- you thought we forgot about that one, didn't ya, Pope-ster! -- you are in fact promoting that which, again, you tell us to abhore. Like the Charles Worleys and the Pope Benedicts of the world, the Putins also do not feel the need to explain, justify or listen. Their indignation at our questions is justified, their right to do as they will, or say as they will, superceding the rights of everyone else in the world. They are not to be held accountable. Worley sees no reason to speak to anyone about his bullshit-spewing. He can scream his hate from the pulpit – his sick, unfounded hate, about a God who would condemn someone for loving – yet not have to provide any ‘proof’ that God wants all gays and lesbians killed. Of course, he can’t provide that proof, because none exists... sort of like the proof that Assad is not killing his own people, the Pope does not harbor pedophiles and Putin is not funding regimes that are completely dedicated to the destruction of the west. How long do we stick our heads in the sand, and watch elections be tampered with, (Yes, Harper, I mean you too, asshole -- you have definitely earned your place in this gallery of despots and buffoons. You may think you pulled a fast one, but we all know that those who have to resort to election fraud are those who fucking well KNOW they would not win without it, and are therefore not worthy of the title), villages of innocent people being massacred, preachers using the pulpit to justify their fears and hatred, and world leaders using the United Nations to castrate any hint of compassion or caring when it interfers with their own personal agendas and bank accounts? All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. We know this… so what the fuck are we waiting for. The time is here. Stand up. Scream ‘Enough!’. Tell the world that we are tired of the hatred, the manipulation, the theft and greed that are all borne on the backs of good, innocent people.