Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Don't be a gaycist

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(A poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller, published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free)

 
So now they are coming for the gays, stripping us of our rights, the moral majority deciding the fate of the minority. I wonder how our world would be different if slavery were left up to a state-by-state popular vote of a pre-Lincoln America? Well for one, I don't think we would have our current president in office. I know that the Bible was used to justify slavery just as it is being used to justify gaycism denying yet another minority their rights all in the name of religion.

But then again we as a society are known to pick and choose only the things that are convenient or agreeable to us to follow in the Bible and we willingly ignore others in the same section that says "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination." Bans against wearing gold, eating shellfish, getting divorced, having tatoos, cutting hair in a round shape or playing football co-exist with this proclamation but somehow we choose to ignore those edicts. I especially love the letter to Dr. Laura that made its rounds back in 2000 specifically addressing this hypocrisy asking her opinion on how we should enforce the penalties for these transgressions clearly laid out in that same Bible (death by stoning, selling daughters into slavery, removal of limbs).

How will the act of separating and denying 1,138 legal rights to same spouse partners protect the institution of marriage? It sounds to me like a group of elitists trying to exclude those that are different than they are from their position of privilege. In this country we have the right to bear arms and kill our neighbors, friends and family (in 2009 nearly 50% of homicides were by family, friends or acquaintances) and this is protected by our constitution.

But the right to love and marry who we choose is a privilege to be awarded to only those that meet the religious requirement of being a man and woman. What happened to separation of church and state? Where are the courts who are supposed to protect the rights of the minority from the majority vote? Where are the African Americans who remember how it feels to be told who they can and cannot marry? Oh, I think they forgot since 70% of African Americans in California backed Proposition 8, according to exit polls.

Well the reversal in California will impact loving couples, families, friends and co-workers for years to come, not to mention the future marriages (and revenues they create) that will never happen. Here's a stimulus package worth considering; let's agree to a law that will generate a projected $684 million in wedding services in California alone or the $111 million in Massachusetts over the next 3 years. What I don't understand is why in the world would we spend so much time and energy taking away rights when we have so many larger issues to contend with like wars in 2 countries, uninsured Americans, joblessness, financial fraud in epidemic proportions?

And then I remember, I don't have to solve these problems or answer these questions, only outgrow them. Join me in seeing each of those featured in this video outgrow this temporary obstacle, this opportunity for expansion, that we seem to be encountering as we search for the modern day Abraham Lincoln to save our country from gaycism.