Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Why not?
With the Iowa court decision & the Vermont legislature vote, it's been a good week for supporters of legal same sex marriage.
I have never heard an argument against same sex marriage that was not based on religion. Take away religion, & it becomes a matter of tradition & convention. Do we use tradition & convention to defend discrimination?
I was a gradualist, pragmatic on the issue. Domestic partnerships seemed to be the solution. Marriage was just a word. I believed marriage as a central societal concept was so degraded that it was hypocritical to claim the civil & moral aspects were inseparable. Still do. See Newt Gingrich. But from that view, I initially concluded it didn't matter what the equivalent collection of legal rights was called. I was wrong.
There were problems. The religionists resented & opposed having to acknowledge that homosexual relationships had any legitimacy at all. Now, some of them are creeping around to the idea that there's a right to have these relationships, to love who you love, & maybe some civil rights could be extended to them. The Rick Warren position. But he's so 1980's. Like needing to hear Ellen DeGeneres say, "Hey, I'm a lesbian." Because when gay people do that, you have to stop pretending they aren't gay. See her talk show? That's middle America now.
The generation born in the Reagan decade is all grown up. They don't care if gays get married. They hold the view earlier generations arrived at by asking "Why?" But the question is really a rhetorical "Why not?"
Take away religion & it's nuttin'. Can't argue against gay marriage from reason.
It's not murder. It's not theft. It's not even speeding in a 25 mph school zone.
A state here, a state there. Just a matter of time. America is growing up to it.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I have never heard an argument against same sex marriage that was not based on religion. Take away religion, & it becomes a matter of tradition & convention. Do we use tradition & convention to defend discrimination?
I was a gradualist, pragmatic on the issue. Domestic partnerships seemed to be the solution. Marriage was just a word. I believed marriage as a central societal concept was so degraded that it was hypocritical to claim the civil & moral aspects were inseparable. Still do. See Newt Gingrich. But from that view, I initially concluded it didn't matter what the equivalent collection of legal rights was called. I was wrong.
There were problems. The religionists resented & opposed having to acknowledge that homosexual relationships had any legitimacy at all. Now, some of them are creeping around to the idea that there's a right to have these relationships, to love who you love, & maybe some civil rights could be extended to them. The Rick Warren position. But he's so 1980's. Like needing to hear Ellen DeGeneres say, "Hey, I'm a lesbian." Because when gay people do that, you have to stop pretending they aren't gay. See her talk show? That's middle America now.
The generation born in the Reagan decade is all grown up. They don't care if gays get married. They hold the view earlier generations arrived at by asking "Why?" But the question is really a rhetorical "Why not?"
Take away religion & it's nuttin'. Can't argue against gay marriage from reason.
It's not murder. It's not theft. It's not even speeding in a 25 mph school zone.
A state here, a state there. Just a matter of time. America is growing up to it.
Labels: blogging against theocracy, in the news, Mahalo
