Scoble and Chris have blogged their support for homosexual marriage, so here’s my +1. Unlike Chris, I’ve known quite a few homosexuals in my life. Several of my best friends (as in, would seriously consider donating a kidney to kind of friends) are gay. I grew up hanging around the theater world where homosexuality is much more pervasive (and accepted) than “mainstream” society. I used to have a bunch of friends on a gay hockey team (it sounds cliché, but they were called the Gay Blades). And this past summer, my wife, our then-six-month-old son and I went to Victoria, Canada to see my two uncles get married after a lifetime of commitment to each other.
As part of the ceremony, my uncle told me how much my involvement in his life has meant to him and husband. I wasn’t told that he was gay until I was going to college at USC, which was about an hour drive from my uncle’s home. For reasons they would have to explain, my parents didn’t tell me until then. When my mother finally told me my uncle was gay, she was in tears, so I naturally assumed he had AIDS and was dying. I mean, why else would she be crying? He wasn’t dying, she was just worried how I would react. As far as I was and still am concerned, being gay doesn’t change anything. Since I couldn’t fly back to the east coast for long weekends, I got to spend them with my uncles instead. I don’t get to see them as often as I did back then, though they have come up to see us twice since my son was born. But they will always be a major part of my life and I will be forever honored that they asked me and my family to be a part of their wedding.
I’m a huge Bill Maher fan and I only just recently discovered Real Time. He talked about gay marriage in the Valentine’s Day edition of his New Rules. As a Democrat, it really struck a cord with me.
Republicans used to be the party that opposed social engineering. But now they push programs to outlaw marriage for some people and encourage it for others. If you’re straight, there’s a billion-five in the budget to promote marriage, but gay marriage is opposed because it threatens or mocks or does something to the “sanctity” of marriage, as if anything you can do in Vegas, drunk off your ass in front of an Elvis impersonator, could be considered sacred.
But at least the right wing aren’t hypocrites on this issue. They really believe that homosexuality is an abomination and a dysfunction that’s curable…But I have to tell you, the greater shame in this story goes to the Democrats, because they don’t believe homosexuality is an abomination. And therefore, their refusal to endorse gay marriage is hypocrisy. Their position doesn’t come from the Bible. It’s ripped right from the latest poll, which says most Americans are against gay marriage.
Well, you know what? Sometimes most Americans are just wrong. And where is the Democrat who will stand up and go beyond the half measures of “civil union” and “hate the sin, love the sinner” and say loud and clear, “There is no sin; it’s not an abomination and no one can control how cupid aims his arrows.”
I’m not running for office, but I’ll say it: Homosexuality isn’t a sin, an abomination or wrong. Letting homosexuals get married isn’t going to weaken society, change the most fundamental institution of civilization, cause the sky to fall or any of the other things that Bush claims it will cause. Legislating discrimination however, which is what Bush’s proposed amendment to the Constitution amounts to, actually will weaken society and change what is really the most fundamental institution of civilization: freedom.
Bush certainly talks a lot about freedom when he’s trying to justify the
invasion liberation of Iraq. However, in calling for a amendment to
outlaw gay
marriage,
the only reference to freedom was when he said that “commitment of
freedom…does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic
social institutions.” Actually, when these “basic social institutions”
are inherently discriminatory – take slavery and women’s lack of right
to vote as examples – it is absolutely required that we redefine them to
eliminate the discrimination. Otherwise, we become the kind of a
fascist
society
that our founding fathers were trying to avoid when they wrote the
Constitution
in the first place. That’s what establishing Justice, insuring domestic
Tranquility and securing the Blessings of Liberty is all about.
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