Posted at 10:59 AM ET,
05/10/2012
No
celebration for this lesbian
By Lauren
Taylor
I’m a progressive, out lesbian, but I’m not doing a happy dance
about President Obama’s support for gay marriage.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think we (the country, the society)
should be giving rights, privileges and protections to
anyone — gay, straight, bisexual or other — based on their sexual or romantic
relationships. I think most of the rights and privileges gay men and lesbians
are seeking by pursuing marriage rights should be granted to human beings
because they are human beings, whether or not they find one person they want to
spend the rest of their lives with.
Cassi
Creek: When I wind up indicating that I
support gays, lesbians, and other minorities in their quest for the right to
marry, it is certain that someone will proclaim that such action will, somehow,
damage or de-sanctify marriage between two heterosexuals. Generally they use “man and woman (or man and
wife) depending upon their placement on the fundamentalism scale.
This always causes me to wonder what
it is about such a coupling that harms what is felt to be a “traditional
pairing. No one in the opposing camp has
ever offered me a rational and/or valid answer.
If pushed hard enough the religious far-rightist will sputter a bit,
then hide behind a line or two in Leviticus, insisting that “God” wants it that
way. Convenient, and unproven; the
supposed words of Moses, purportedly speaking for the mythical deity he
encountered in a flaming shrub, are invoked as if such invocation is supposed
to overturn reason, rationality, science (many disciplines) and automatically
win any and all arguments.
I don’t accept the premise of biblical
or papal infallibility. I don’t believe
that any religion’s sacred text is accurate in translation or free from
political and cultural bias. I don’t
believe that two men or two women joining in legal and civil partnership damages
my relationship with Gloria. I find no
reason to fear that any other couple undergoing a public or private religious
service will cause any harm to the deep commitment to each other that Gloria
and I share. I don’t expect property
devaluation, swarms of locusts, mysterious plagues, or armed invaders from a
neighboring state, a competing theocracy, or a distant galaxy. I don’t expect a mob of gay or lesbian
parents trying to destroy the PTA. I’m
just not worried by a couple obtaining a civil partnership license at the
county offices. If “they” (any “they”)
can afford a formal religious production number with attendants, parties, and a
secret destination, more power to them.
They aren’t likely to lower my property values, although I may lower
theirs.
Lauren Taylor doesn’t answer my
question. Her article does, however,
suggest several reasons we should applaud such unions. In my youth, inter-racial marriages were
illegal and rare. They happen every day
now, in every state in the union. The
world is changing, the teavangelists and GOP don’t like that, can’t stop the
loss of WASP power brokers and bankers who run the world. There will eventually be unopposed pairing of
gays, lesbians, and other minorities. It
will take time but it will happen because people manage to break the ice, bust
the block, and teach the next generation that all humans deserve the same
rights. In the end, it will simply
become standard practice.
The answer to the question remains
missing. I’ve heard many Reponses that
display fear, bigotry, lack of education, and religious brainwashing. I don’t expect to hear an accurate one any
time soon.
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