WITH APOLOGIES TO MY FATHER: Calm Down, Please

So there's a lot of unnecessary hate in this world. It's too bad really, because I think everyone would probably be good if given the chance, but I don't think people are given that chance much anymore.

I've been reading a lot about California and the gay marriage law this week, and I'm shocked. I'm shocked at how awful people have become. I'm shocked at how awful people can be when they think they are being good or even righteous. I'm shocked at how these awful people think history will smile upon them kindly when every single activist on the side of pro-discrimination retroactively looks like a monster twenty years later. I'm sure some misguided zealot back in the day made a whole lot of sense when he said, "Them Darkies shant ever marry our proper white ladies. If they do, all our children will be born with big hands and big feet and small brains, and we'll eventually die out." And I'm sure some very rich man made sense when he told Susan B. Anthony and company, "If women started to work and started to vote, we men would not be taken care of. We'd starve. You'd be too busy to rear children. We'd eventually die out."

I probably shouldn't try to gauge the public perception of an issue based on what I read on Internet message boards, but I do. This is unfortunate because I think the most level-headed people in society, the people that actually think about both sides of an issue and weigh the merits of both sides of an argument, don't post on message boards. What's the point? There is no point. None. That said, the gay marriage debate is truly fascinating. It's sad. It's unnecessary. But it's fascinating. The people taking the male/female only marriage defense seem to point to passages in the Bible from the book of Leviticus that say something like a man cannot lay with a man like he lays with a woman or it's an abomination. Some Bible translations over the years have taken those words and turned them into, "Homosexuality is a sin." The activists of course ignore the rest of that book which condones slavery, encourages people to sell off annoying siblings, and allows citizens to stone people to death for using the Lord's name in vain. In fact, most people I've talked to, when questioned about some of the clearly outdated nonsense in the Old Testament, say, "Well yeah, Jesus came though and pretty much said, 'Our bad, here's a New Testament for your asses.'" Only he didn't swear or talk like the white people at Wal-Mart. BUT I guess the rule is we can quote Leviticus (which along with Revelations should just be deleted from the Bible) if it helps us discriminate against others.

I'm sure the bloggers in the 1800s loved the passage about taking slaves. I bet organizations like the National Organization for Slavery would have said that Liberal Lincoln's attempt to abolish slavery was an affront to God.

It's one thing for people posting on message boards to spew hate. That's sort of what they do. The Internet is filled with people who've never had parents tell them, "If you don't have something nice or constructive to say, maybe just don't talk, okay?" What's shocked me more this week is the actual (presumably educated and responsible) people who head groups like the National Organization for Marriage and Protect Marriage saying things similar to, "The judge himself was clearly gay and biased towards gays. We never stood a chance," and, "We have to keep fighting this to save marriage." They argue a marriage needs to be of both a man and a woman in order to create a proper child-rearing environment. They say that now. In 2010. That's this year.

What is a proper child rearing environment? We live in a world with several single-parent households. Why are these legally allowable if we need both a man and a woman to raise a child? We live in a world where gender roles become less defined every passing day. Women know how to use power tools. Men can cook. Kids grow up and get nurtured and disciplined by both parents. Gone are the days where the man needed to be a workaholic distant figure of the house while Wifey stayed home and bonded with the children. We all know this, yet somehow people think the traditional male and female heads of household matter. They don't. What matters is two people love each other, and they have balance. When one is mad or quick-tempered, the other need be calm and cool-headed. When one is feeling down or sad, the other need buy a gift or do an act of love to help cheer one up. That's love. That's the institution of marriage. If a child grows up surrounded by love, they'll be fine. Or at least they will have a better chance of being fine. If a child grows up in a male/female household with two parents bitterly clinging onto their marriage and threatening to divorce each other every time the dishwasher isn't empty, he/she will grow up much more jaded than a child raised by a happy, balanced gay couple. Or maybe not. Science still hasn't cracked that whole nature/nurture thing.

Of course that argument presupposes gay people would be interested in starting families through adoption and surrogacy which, according to the ultra right-wing conservatives, they don't. The URWCs argue that if gay couples are allowed to marry, it will threaten our population. We will stop pro-creating. Let's not talk about the fact that there is no steadfast law to force children upon heterosexual couples. Let's also not talk about the fact the world is not at all equipped to handle the expected population growth from 6 billion to 10 billion over the coming decades. Let's not talk about how many households with one set of genitalia raise children--whether it be a single mother or a single father. Let's not talk about the fact these couples would still be together regardless of whether or not marriage exists and their desire for children would be the same, law or no law. Let's pretend that allowing the small minority of people who are gay to marry will somehow cause the world to depopulate and die out. That's a good, solid well-thought argument based on facts and logic. Make sure to reread the last sentence while doing air quotes.

Another argument that doesn't hold much water is that, "The voters of California, the real life human voters of California, voted to make gay marriage illegal. No radical judge should go against the voters. That's what Democracy is about." Wrong. The fact is, gay marriage should never be put to a vote. It's not a legal matter. It's a religious matter. And there are amendments that separate the church from the state, but we forget that when we want the state to be our church. The people of California who voted Yes to ban gay marriage actually voted to willingly discriminate against other people. They made a selection on a ballot box that said, "My way of life is correct and better than that way of life I don't understand and I don't want to understand so I'd rather it just go away please and thank you." Also, the people of California voted the Terminator in as their governor. The Terminator promptly drove the state into almost near ruin. Clearly the people of California aren't very good at voting. Really though, if an elementary school allowed its students to vote on whether or not it's okay to pick on the tall children without consequences, whether or not it's okay to discriminate against the tall children with no fear of being punished, and whether or not it's okay to leave tall children out of games and activities, there would be an uproar.

We're taught at a young age to accept everyone for their differences. Many of us are also taught there is a God that loves and cares for us. Then, somehow, a select few people honestly start to believe that this loving, caring God they believe in wants them to harass a group of people based on that group of people's sexual orientations. If that's the case, I must not understand God or religion much at all. Here I thought it was an organization for fellowship and for people to draw hope and inspiration from one another. I thought it was a place people could go on Sundays and ask for a little help from a God when things get out of control. I thought religion comforts and accepts. I thought it was supposed to level us out--the rich and the poor are both welcome. Somehow ultra-conservative groups have ignored the stories of Jesus allowing a "dirty woman" to wash his feet or of Jesus fraternizing with the poor and these ultra-conservative groups honestly think Jesus will smite gay people when he returns on his horse of fire. I read, "God smote Sodom and Gomorrah for the very same reason--homosexual love affairs." But did He? Or did he not like all the rape? Rape is pretty bad. Or did He just get rid of them because in the Old Testament God basically lit everyone on fire, turned people into piles of salt, or flooded everyone but one family and two of every animal? God was a petulant youth.

Look: humans, at their base, are a very crude species. We're blessed with a strange self-awareness and ability to socialize unlike any other species. We fall in love. We fall out of love. We damage those we care about. We grow up. We repair the damage. We make friends. We meet one special friend. We like this friend more than all the other friends. We like them so much we feel like we're going to explode. So we do. We like a person so much that we take all our clothes off and take all that friend's clothes off and grind against that person and explode all over. That's gross really. It doesn't feel gross when it's happening, but really, I mean, that's gross. Right? People can say gay relations are unnatural, but there really isn't anything more natural with a straight, erect man plugging himself into the clap trap of his ladyfriend. What matters about the strange ritual of mating and practice mating is that it's surrounded with intimacy and love. If two people of the same gender find that love together, more power to them. You, me, anyone shouldn't have the right to tell another person, "Sorry. You can't be with the one you love the most. Why? Because um, thinking of you doing IT makes me feel icky."

And believe it or not, this isn't a downward spiral situation. I've heard arguments this week about, "What if a brother and sister loved each other like that? Or a father and a daughter? Or a man and a horse?" But that won't happen. It doesn't work that way, and people know it. There is a difference between a warm, consensual relationship between two gay people and bestiality/incest.

I understand people are scared of change. They always have been. I also know there is a lot wrong with this country. Kids are being born out of wedlock all over the place. Divorce is almost a certainty for most people. People don't try to work through issues. There are places where kids don't even attend school regularly, if at all. Jersey Shore is popular. People are broke. And yet, we choose to spend money on trials trying to prevent people who love each other to get married. Explain that to me. You can't, because you can't explain that.

Over the last five years, I've figured out people have different opinions. I've become less stubborn. If I were to have an opinion on gay marriage it would be: any gay person should be able to get married. That said, the issue of gay marriage is not an opinion based argument. It's not an, "I feel this way. You feel that way," deal. The fact is: Discrimination is bad, mmkay? You shouldn't do it, you shouldn't condone it, and you shouldn't act righteous and indignant when a judge calls you out for it. True love always wins in the long run. The people fighting against love will learn to regret their behavior when thirty years from now, gay marriage is legal and the world just kept on keeping on.

I know my argument doesn't hold up because I paraphrase and amalgamate articles I've read this week. I don't cite specifics. At least my non-specifics are based in reality and not the cherry-picking of passages from an old text with a wee bit of outdated stories that are used to predict an apocalyptic future that is not even close to happening (or probably even scientifically possible). Either way, I'm sure some of you disagree with me, which is too bad. You'll come around though. Because I think humans are good and want to be good. Sometimes it just takes them too long to realize what good is. True love is good, and true love always wins.