Steve Silberman speaks out against California’s Proposition 8.
Anti-gay marriage groups like Focus on the Family say that same-sex couples are trying to “redefine” marriage, and have been getting laws passed like Proposition 8, approved by a slim majority of California voters last fall, which amends the state constitution to read: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” In truth, the definition of marriage has changed a lot since the Old Testament days, when women were entered into matrimony as property, rather than as persons, after being purchased by the husband’s family.
As recently as the 1960s, interracial marriage was illegal in many states in the US, banned by judges with declarations like, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.” But while Proposition 8—and the fate of 18,000 same-sex couples in California—is currently being weighed by the state Supreme Court, no less an authority than the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary has decided that same-sex couples have a place at the banquet table too:
1 a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>.
My husband and I are one of those couples who are waiting for the Supreme Court to tell us if we get to keep our marriage license or not, though we will not stop feeling married and loving one another—for richer and poorer, ’til death do we part—even if the court decides against us.
Equality has to start somewhere.
The folks at WorldNetDaily are quite upset about this:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pag…
The folks at WND are quite upset any time their horrifically narrow world-view is tainted by reality creeping in–reality being the fact that they're not the only ones in the world, and they're not the only ones who are allowed to have opinions or rights.
Poor old USA wrapping itself up in knots over who is getting married. So many larger issues to worry about and they seem to always pick the most picayune and trite to get vexed over. It is as if the conservative element in the USA is mired in the past and unable to change or realize that everything changes. Poor sods, they are bound to go the way of the dinosaurs.
It's true, Buffy. I struggle against demonizing them as a matter of practice, but it's hard to emotionally understand why they're working so hard to undermine the marriages of others — is there too much love in the world? I know they're fearful, and I have compassion for that, but I wish they would slow down and really think about what they're trying to destroy.
Egad…I just noted that now the whole issue of HIV/AIDS is being brought up on the YouTube site. You know, the old GAY = HIV/AIDS argument. Such a sad world. Okay. Off to do my closing chants as my blood pressure just skyrocketed from reading those comments on YouTube
Wow, those comments are… quite something. One of the anti-gay marriage folks in that thread even seems to be defending slavery against the "Marxist NAACP." I thought we were past the slavery issue! It's pretty challenging to try to practice non-aversion in the face of opinions like that.
This essay on tonglen by Linda Lewis was wonderful to read after those comments, and very apt:
<a href=”http://tinyurl.com/tonglenintro” target=”_blank”>http://tinyurl.com/tonglenintro
I tried the URL but it does not seem to load.
Sorry Milvertonian, for some reason when you click through here an extra <a> is added to the URL — try hand-entering it and make sure there's no <a> at the end. Thanks!
” target=”_blank”>http://tinyurl.com/tonglenintro