California's
gay marriage ban nonsensical
David
Whisler
Imagine
for a moment you were told you did not
have the right to love the person you
love. Furthermore, you willl never have
the right, if society has anything to
say about it, to marry that person and
have a family.
Now imagine it is because God hates you, or because “God hates fags,” as
the Rev. Fred Phelps so blatantly proclaims on his Web site of the same name.
Statistically, 10 percent of us don’t have to imagine this; we live it.
Again and again, gay marriage has been struck down in state after state.
Last
November, the voters in 10 states mobilized, in overwhelming number, to ban
gay marriage in their constitutions.
In 1999, California voters passed Proposition 22, proclaiming marriage should
be between a man and a woman, and now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sits poised
to veto California’s recent landmark legislation approving gender-neutral
marriage. It seems that everyone hates fags these days.
This monumental outpouring of regulation for other people’s lives has
prompted me to ask why people are so opposed.
The most popular and perhaps
the most maddening answer I’ve been given is God created marriage, and
it is a sanctified union.
Allow me to break this argument down in two ways: First of all, God did not
create marriage, man did.
Second, even if God did create marriage, man created
divorce; therefore we’ve already pooed all over his sanctified union
now haven’t we?
Furthermore, in a society that has drive-thru windows with rhinestone-studded
Elvis impersonators performing this hallowed service, I don’t think two
men or two women partaking in it could really mar its sanctity any further.
Personally, I think that so many people are up-in-arms about this particular
issue because it’s the last stand for gay rights.
It’s the last
carrot straight society has to hold over us as they coo, “There there,
be good little homos and one day you can get married just like us.”
It
is as if they are genuinely afraid if we’re granted the same rights we
might think we are just as good as them; ghastly!
The thing that befuddles me even more is the gay and lesbian opposition.
This
can be attributed to one of three things:
No. 1 They are commitment-phobic;
afraid that if gay marriage is approved they will have to say “I do”
No.
2 They prefer to be on the outside looking in, and honestly don’t believe
they should have the same rights as straight folks
No. 3 They enjoy being
lashed to society’s whipping post and punished for their deviant lifestyle.
No matter what their reasons are, they have a right to them but they won’t
be coming to any dinner parties at my house this year.
The bright spot in all of this controversy comes from looking backwards. History
tells us people eventually do the right thing.
Interracial marriage was illegal
in the United States until 1967, and wasn’t widely accepted until 1991,
which brings me to one conclusion: gay marriage is going to happen; it’s
just a question of when.
David Whisler is a senior journalism and English education major and a
copy editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
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