An Open Letter To Those Against Gay Marriage

We’re just a couple of days away from the most important election in our lifetime.  We’ve got major decisions as a country to make as to the direction we’re heading.

Regardless of which side of the issues you agree with, I must first say, GO OUT AND VOTE!  There’s no more important civic duty that any of us have.  It’s the only way that we, as a nation, have to express our viewpoints.  We’re at the beginning of a revolution in the way we think and act as a country.

One of the issues on several state’s ballots this year is the issue of Gay Marriage.  If you’ve looked around this site, you’ve seen the rhetoric on both sides.  There are those who say that Gay Marriage will suddenly be taught in the school systems.  There are those that say we’re giving special rights by granting Gay Marriage.  There are those that say that we should have given those rights a long time ago.

To the first point above, I went through 14 years of school (2 years in college) and never remember any classes about ANY form of marriage.  No one ever sat us down and defined marriage for us.  That was left to the kids in the schoolyard.  Many of my friends are teachers, and they would attest that there is no curriculum in schools about marriage.

My best friend is a schoolteacher in Maryland, and he tells me that they are adding an extra hour of classroom time every day next year because they don’t have enough time to teach the math, reading, science, and social studies as it is.  I truly don’t think that anyone will be adding even more time into the day to teach Gay Marriage, when there’s not enough time to teach the subjects we have now.

Over on the LDS Forums today, there’s a discussion about supporting Gay Marriage, and how the writer believes that gay people in California already have equal rights:

A YES on Prop 8 takes nothing away from same sex couples. They currently enjoy all the access benefits of married heterosexual couples.

Of course, the same was said of black students during segregation.  They had access to separate and equal schools, therefore they must have equal rights.

The judges then were smart enough to figure out that this was untrue then, and we as a society should be smart enough to figure this out now.

Just an observation, and not a value judgment here, but it seems that most of the people who are against Gay Marriage are in the “religious” camp.  I grew up as a Christian, and am fairly well versed in the teachings of Jesus.  True, he never said anything about homosexuality, but if you look at the people he hung around with, prostitutes and the like, he hung out with some pretty strange characters.

Perhaps there is where he thought he could do the most good.

in his time, he was even a little controversial himself.  It’s high time that those who claim to follow a loving God follow his lead, and love.  “Without preconditions” as Barrack Obama would say.

Those who say that Gay Marriage is wrong will often quote the Bible.  “It’s all right there” they will tell you.  Right in the list of things God says you shouldn’t do.  Mostly, they’ll point to Leviticus 20:13:

• RSV: (Revised Standard Version): “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Of course, looking at the entirely of Leviticus 20, you’ll see that adulterers, rapists, and many other people should be put to death as well.

Elsewhere in the Bible it says that man should not touch the skin of a pig, yet we have Football players and we don’t advocate their demise.

It’s time as a society that we simply choose to allow others to live their lives.  If it doesn’t affect us, why should be care?

Assuming you’re against Gay Marriage, how does my getting married to my boyfriend affect you in the slightest way?  In fact, it even helps you.  Once we’re legally joined, his health insurance will cover me.  As it is now, because we’re legally single, the state pays for my health insurance. So, because of your refusal to legally acknowledge our relationship, you are willing to pay more in taxes.

What if I were to adopt a child? Here in Minnesota, we can’t both adopt the child, as a married couple could. What happens to that child, say in 10 years if I were to die in a car crash? Here my partner, who would have been a parent to that child its entire life would have to convince a judge that that child should stay with him.  A married couple doesn’t need to go through that pain.  How is that fair to that child?

I CAN, however propose a solution.

When a couple gets married, any couple, anywhere in this country, whether they are gay or straight, there are actually TWO processes (assuming a church wedding).  There’s the church ceremony, and then the registration of that couple with the state.

Let’s call that state registration a civil union.  Let’s stop using the word marriage for it all together.  Any two people could join together in the eyes of the government, and we’ll call that a civil union.

For those who wish to be married, let’s keep that a religious term. You can stand in front of a minister (or priest) and be “joined in the eyes of God”. We’ll call that a marriage.

Those who want the legal benefits and responsibilities of what we now know as marriage can simply take the extra time to be registered with the State.  If they don’t want the hassle, let them simply get married in the church.  Now we have two separate terms, and no one is offended.

Of course, something tells me that if we were to suddenly start referring to straight “marriages” as “civil unions” that the straight community would suddenly understand our plight.

Perhaps then, we might be able to move forward.

Of course, I’m only one man, and that’s just my humble opinion. Please use the comment box below to weigh in with yours.