A Marriage Made in..Bigotry

Can't sleep.  Thanks a lot, North Carolina.
A few thoughts about marriages, gay and otherwise.

Marriage is a social, cultural and legal institution.  It extends rights, encourages economic stability and the forming of households that create the backbone of community.  It's a great place to raise kids.   It's a opportunity to choose love against isolation, and to develop spiritually by learning how to negotiate fitting two stories into a bigger one. When done mindfully, it brings the intention of encouraging and supporting two individuals to extend themselves in identifying and bringing to fruition the highest, wisest hearts of self and partner.

all dressed up and nowhere to go

It isn't solely for procreation, or God would smite down all barren persons, right?  And it would follow that older persons should not marry if indeed childbearing is the main purpose.  But most religions have no issue with the childless marriage.  Christian heterosexual marriages, sadly, are not much more likely to succeed than unions not blessed by a church.  Baptists have among the highest divorce rates, outpacing agnostics and atheists alike.

The State of Marriage is a Mess. But homosexuals don't seem the biggest threat to it toppling over.  If you're straight, It's much more likely that another heterosexual will threaten your marriage then a gay person. You're really probably safe there. People spend too much money, time and anxiety planning weddings and way too little thinking about how they want to create a marriage.  Gays will probably do some of that too.  But I am less worried about people who want to attempt a life of love and commitment than those who find that threatening.

If you are gay, or barren, or reasonably compassionate-- if you fall into the majority of Americans who have no issue with two committed persons of sound mind and high intentions being allowed to publicly and legally proclaim their love and desire to merge their lives and homes-- I hope you will write your elected officials and tell them it's time to get on board.  When women were allowed to work for pay, and not viewed under the law as property of men, when slaves were freed and children removed from dangerous labor jobs and allowed to go to school, the world didn't end.  It grew up some, accepting its responsibility to be humane and to extend rights from a privileged few to more of its citizens.

It's time to do the right thing, and stand together for love.

       I can't understand for the life of me why the Pope, among other religious and political leaders, would say that gay marriages would threaten the future of humanity.  Maybe this video can clear that up:

The Right To Love and Commit

This month, New York became the most recent and most populous state to allow same-sex marriages.  The Senate vote was close, 33-29, and is already being challenged in court.   Republican Senator Mark Grisanti, who ran for office on an anti-gay platform,  came in with late support.  “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”  "I was wrong" to oppose those rights, he said.
    It takes courage to admit that.  Even former vice-president Dick Cheney has come around to publicly stating that "freedom means freedom for everyone" when asked his position on gay marriage.  Would that Obama be so brave. 
     We are a country built on slowly figuring out and correcting our mistakes-- slavery, child labor, women's rights to name a few.  We talk a big talk about equality, but we are easily threatened by change.  
This week I am missing the wedding of a dear friend.  She's in Canada, and her celebration occurs on the tail end of my already-spent vacation, and as much as I regret not being part of it, I couldn't make it.  She'd asked me months ago if I could be her celebrant, but while gay marriage is legal in Canada, my officiant credentials aren't.  I spoke with her last week and asked her to tell me something about her beloved.  "She was my first love, and is my forever love".  Although they'd met many, many years ago, it hadn't occurred to Lois at the time she could ever be with the love of her life.  How things change.  How good that they do.  
     I don't get the fear over gay marriage. What's so scary about love and commitment?  I've heard some arguments that frankly seem ludicrous to me.  It threatens straight marriages?  I don't see how.  I've seen a lot of straight marriages threatened by other heterosexuals, but not gays.   Marriage is for procreation?  Then I guess we should nullify all couples who can't or choose not to have children.  In the New Testament, Jesus says nothing against homosexuality.  While there's a few (6-7) verses against homosexuality in the Old Testament, there are also admonishments against engaging in everything from shellfish ingestion to mixing fibers in fabric. (For a humorous take on this, see the infamous "Letter to Dr. Laura").
I do fear angry, constricted people who impose their agendas on others.  I am much more threatened by the Anders Behreing Breiviks of the world than the couple featured in the video below. Love expands.  Fear contracts.  Let's grow.
       "We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity." 
— Malcolm X