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Love and marriage
February 26th, 2004
I’ll never understand those who would chose the ways of hate and fear over those of love and acceptance.
When I think about the recent events, I go there first.
What comes next is: I can’t relate to people whose only way to validate their own life is to pass judgement on another’s.
And it’s really hard for me to move on from there in any rational, meaningful way.
I try not to dissolve into spinning frustration or raw anger, both are easy to do. And kinda worthless and more hurtful to oneself than anything else. Not that I deny my anger, I welcome it, and think it’s equally harmful to deny it. But like every other human impulse, it needs control. I find it best to remember than to actually try to use.
Not surprisingly I‘ve been reading many reactions to the recent gay marriages and the measures some are proposing to stop them. Some have been by friends, some by strangers. Some have been reasoned debate, some contemplation, some out and out rants and wails. I value them all and am very pleased to see people raise voice and prove polls and pre-conceptions wrong—even Andrew Sullivan.
But the one I think I’m most in line with is the post made by the estimable Wil Wheaton.
Even to liking the principles that founded this country. And on a side note, given the spin that this issue has taken, let me say I even admire the teachings of Christ, there are a lot of good words to live by in them.* It’s what people have gone on to do with them or the acts they claim to commit in their name that disgust and anger me.
Many of his points I have read before: that this is about politics and not morality and that the attempt to prohibit same sex marriage is about hating homosexuals and not about saving families.
But the thing that Wil said that I really like:
Even though there are thousands of gay and lesbian couples affirming their love for and commitment to each other, my marriage—my affirmation of love and commitment to Anne—isn’t threatened at all. As a matter of fact, the only people who can really “threaten” my marriage are . . . well . . . the two of us.
And there’s the thing really. To be a threat, to really be a threat to something, you have to take an active interest in it.
And, I’m sorry Mr and Mrs Joe America, but those gay couples getting married in San Francisco? They just don’t care about you or your marriage. Like all humans, they are selfish and more focused on their own lives and doing the best they can and grabbing as much joy as they can. And I doubt they envy you, sorry again. They may desire to have the same protected rights as you and to be recognized as equal citizens like you, but that’s a long road from envy. Hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings or rob you of the new purpose you think your marriage needs.
*Not sure why so many Christians chose the message of Jehovah over Christ, but that’s another story. I’d also like to point out that just someone is quoting Scripture, it doesn’t mean you’ve found a Christian.
Filed under Home & Hearth |2 Responses to “Love and marriage”
you hit the nail on the head. it’s so much harder to look inward than it is to criticize everyone around you.
Personally I believe that a constitutional amendment condoning the bigotry of right wing extremist politics is shameful and yet strangely par for the course of the entire Bush administration. The alteration of the basic documents of the freedoms of these United States for something so petty as religious bias has seemed to me through out its course to be roughly the equivalent to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Remember the old advertisement slogan “You’ve got your peanut butter in my chocolate!”? Perhaps it would be best if someone paraphrased this statement: “You’ve got your religion in my politics!” Don’t let this stuff get you down. To quote Mark Twain “It is impossible for brutal laws to exist in a country where every (one) holds the vote.”
These people are not going to win. Hate does not win.. and Wil Wheaton was right. He’s also cute, but he’s definitely right. Just letting you know I’m still out here. Talk to you later.