Thursday, January 07, 2010
20 to 14
was the Jersey State Senate vote against marriage equality. But I don't make too much of it. Public support for marriage equality hovers near 50% here . The most vocal spokespersons in the senate for & against were both Roman Catholic men, & the against guy is 75 years old. Our suburban Republican governor-elect is relieved he won't have to veto it; he was hired to do something about spending, taxes, & corruption & is disinclined so far to promote a right wing "social values" agenda. No politician of consequence attacks domestic partnerships. So the defeat is more a "not yet" than a "never."
Only the most naive of those opposing marriage equality in New Jersey can't see they're on the road to Appomattox. When I see a conservative Black Baptist pastor & a Hassid protesting together, I'm looking at both what's great about America & awful about religious patriarchy. I almost excuse them for the reason that they must protest. Almost, because marriage equality won't affect them any more than Will & Grace TV show reruns or the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. No one will disturb their patriarchal order & insist that dancing Hassids include women in their celebrations or a Baptist preacher acknowledge that his Sunday School Director has lived for years with a "friend" of the same gender & they're not just sharing the rent. Although I feel for the closeted men & women in their communities whose only alternative to staying silent is being shunned & driven out into the wilderness. Being born into those communities is different than choosing a religious environment in order to hide from one's sexuality, like gay students at Liberty University.
Small comfort to same sex couples in Jersey who want to be married now, but if the courts don't help, a clear popular vote majority for marriage equality is just a few years away here in many other states. High school & college age youth aren't interested in the reasoning that can elect an openly lesbian mayor of Houston & yet deny her a legal status as someone's life partner, & then get hung up on the line between "domestic partnership" & "marriage." You want to legally call it marriage, fine with me. I'd prefer if government got out of the marriage business & everyone signed the same civil union contract. But that is not to be. It'll have to be marriage.
"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
Only the most naive of those opposing marriage equality in New Jersey can't see they're on the road to Appomattox. When I see a conservative Black Baptist pastor & a Hassid protesting together, I'm looking at both what's great about America & awful about religious patriarchy. I almost excuse them for the reason that they must protest. Almost, because marriage equality won't affect them any more than Will & Grace TV show reruns or the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. No one will disturb their patriarchal order & insist that dancing Hassids include women in their celebrations or a Baptist preacher acknowledge that his Sunday School Director has lived for years with a "friend" of the same gender & they're not just sharing the rent. Although I feel for the closeted men & women in their communities whose only alternative to staying silent is being shunned & driven out into the wilderness. Being born into those communities is different than choosing a religious environment in order to hide from one's sexuality, like gay students at Liberty University.
Small comfort to same sex couples in Jersey who want to be married now, but if the courts don't help, a clear popular vote majority for marriage equality is just a few years away here in many other states. High school & college age youth aren't interested in the reasoning that can elect an openly lesbian mayor of Houston & yet deny her a legal status as someone's life partner, & then get hung up on the line between "domestic partnership" & "marriage." You want to legally call it marriage, fine with me. I'd prefer if government got out of the marriage business & everyone signed the same civil union contract. But that is not to be. It'll have to be marriage.
Labels: blogging against theocracy, love, New Jersey, New Jersey politics, religion, sex with a Republican
