Gay Marriage

The Senate has begun debate on the most important issue before our society today, whether or not it should be legal for two men (or two women) to bind themselves legally in marriage. Wow, when did we stamp out terrorism, erase poverty, solve world hunger, end the genocide, cure Cancer and AIDS and finally resolve the energy crisis? I must have been sleeping through that FOX News special report. I wish someone could give me a rational explanation as to why our legislators are spending my tax money debating over whether or not we should amend the constitution to deprive certain citizens of their rights. The politics of this debate are incredibly transparent, and honestly, I am sickened by this move. It's not like there are American soldiers dying in another country. Nothing else is nearly as important as preventing two homosexuals from calling their relationship a marriage. In fact, let's change the ruling document of our country to make sure that homosexuals can't commit themselves to each other in a legal sense. I tell you, the gays are just ruining this country, I mean what have they ever done for us? This kind of bigotry drives me up a fucking wall. However, the reasons for the debate are even more mind boggling. The President claims that he is putting the amendment forward to take the power out of the hands of "activist judges." However, it's perfectly acceptable, at least to this president (who claims that he doesn't pay attention to the polls) to allow a small section of the voter base and activists like Lloyd Dobson and Pat Robertson influence the legal policies of the United States. But let's examine this in a bit more detail, the argument I have heard most often against institutionalizing gay marriage is that it threatens the sanctity of the marital institution. As of year end 2004 the divorce rate for 1st marriages stood at 43%, while this is is down from the 53% peak seen in 1981, it is still 20% higher than the 22% in 1957. Thus, in an environment where nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, how is it possible that allowing gay couples to marry will "destroy the institution of marriage"? Given that straight folks have been destroying it at a significantly increased rate over the last 50 years, the idea that gays who marry will do any significant harm to the institution is fairly spurious and just flat out ridiculous. I think even the most discerning Bush apologist can see that the timing on this debate, which no one even expects to reach a vote, is simply an attempt at rallying the troops for the midterm elections in November. The President has managed to drop his approval ratings to around 30%, and I am quite sure that the Republicans who are up for re-election are trying to do anything they can to flush out some votes, but the way they are doing it is just pathetic. Praying on the fears and insecurities of the people they represent makes them just as bad as the terrorists they so ardently blame the Democrats for creating. While the Democrats are not much better, in that they use the same type of scare tactics quite often, at least they haven't reverted to a program that would, for all intents and purposes, put segregation back into the legal framework of our country (although they were primarily responsible for it's appearance the first time around.) It's amazing to me that anyone in this country would be in favor of denying citizens rights guaranteed by the constitution because of a discriminating feature of their lives. I seem to remember a period in history where this was done, in fact it was a very long period in history, and I am pretty sure that everyone is fairly happy with the decision to give black Americans the rights they deserved under the constitution. It's not really any different when you think about it, in fact it's even more intrusive, imagine a country where the government tells you who you are and are not allowed to love. Perhaps we should also modify the preamble to the Constitution, maybe this is how it should read: "We, the heterosexual, Christian, conservative people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union of persecution and intolerance, establish injustice, insure domestic control, provide for the common defense of those we deem worthy, promote the general welfare of anyone who agrees with us, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity at the expense of all those who come after, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of straight, Christian America" At least that would be honest...