Marriage
I just read Keith Olbermann’s very eloquent argument on the subject of marriage equality. I have posted a couple of passages below, but I strongly encourage you to read the full article. This is an issue that will become an embarrassment to our country.
Think back throughout the brief history of our nation. Every single time we challenge progress and support hate because we cannot face change, the change always wins in the end. Those who fight for change write the history books, and those who fight against it are always left behind. Always.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them—no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?
This part really does interest me. If you oppose the right for gay couples to marry, please help me understand why. I hear over and over again that it would “weaken” the institution of marriage. HOW!?
There are plenty of issues I don’t agree with. For example, I don’t support the Iraq war. But I would never dream of taking rights away from our troops. Yet, it seems that many of the same people who cry out against abuse of our troops are also waving signs of hate against “Adam and Steve”, just because they want to get married. I don’t understand.
I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage. If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
I think this is one of those generational issues. Unfortunately, it seems there is only so much change that any single generation can tolerate. But this is a CHOICE. You have a choice to fight change, or to embrace it.
So the next time this issue comes up on a ballot, please don’t vote for hate. Please don’t become obsolete. Please don’t become an embarrassment to history. Support marriage equality.