By The David
I was not at all confident. I firmly believe that when the rights of a minority rest with the “good will” of the majority then the minority will always become the loser. Same-sex marriage will once more become illegal in Maine. Once again, a referendum has taken a basic right away from a struggling minority. Some see this as a “power to the people” move that affirms and adds to the strength of democracy. In fact it is the opposite: It is a move that adds to the power of an already powerful majority by diminishing the value of a group that is, in fact at their mercy.
Maine voters blew their chance to be a national leader in the fight to repudiate bigotry within their own living rooms. They threw away the chance to prove that in this bastion of “Yankee Tradition” all are welcome at the table. They threw it all away. What they gained is a law that suppresses how a minority might live within the borders of the state.
But does it? What referenda of this kind actually do is curtail what legal options are available to members of the LGBT Community. Whether in Maine, Florida, California or any other State that seeks to limit behavior that is innate, same-sex relationships will flourish. Marriages will happen with or without the approval of the State. Before the African-American secured the right to marriage under the law, they “jumped the broom” and these marriages were as valid and valuable as any performed with the pomp and ceremony of those taking place in a cathedral. It is that way for homosexual men and women as well. They may not have a ceremony or “a broom to jump,” but they will have marriages. These marriages will be based on the same attraction, love and commitment that countless Hollywood Productions have told us are within the province of our straight, heterosexual brothers and sisters only. But human rights are not a game of win or lose for either side. When any group loses a right, all of society is diminished by that loss.
Behind this loss lurked the churches and the often misguided sheep who practice what comes from the pulpit when it is convenient to do so. The Roman Catholic Church is given the credit for shepherding this blow to the gay community, but most Christian churches joined with them. They strongly urged their parishioners to take a stand for god and vote down marriage for the godless queers. And so they did. It was an easy vote for many. It was not as though the church was asking for a vote to validate their stance on the divorce that results in separation from the sacraments; they were not asking for a vote to ban so called artificial birth control , nor was the Church asking for a referendum to make it illegal for all those who have committed adultery or fornication to embrace marriage. Even those who have had to make the difficult decision to abort a pregnancy are not faced with state laws that prevent their marriage, and this vote was not about that. Catholics who have been taught by their church that all of these life-choices are morally wrong and not tolerated within their own group could now point the finger at other people who were made to stand outside the Church, even at a greater distance than they themselves. What the Church doesn’t teach it’s people is that gay and lesbian people are who they are because of nature. Homosexuality is innate. There is no choice here. It is who we are.
You state, “It is a move that adds to the power of an already powerful majority by diminishing the value of a group that is, in fact at their mercy.”
They KNOW this. They LOVE this. They DO this intentionally to HURT us and our FAMILIES.
It makes them feel powerful to participate in Apartheid against all of the gay children THEY created.
David, the sadness of this story is surpassed only by the monstrous hate exhibited by the opposition; those ‘churches’ we support with our tax dollars; the overfed ‘preachers’ who politicize their pulpits at our expense, rallying their ‘Christian soldiers’ in a war against their fellow citizens – a literal crime against humanity.
Shame. Shame on them all; shame on us for tolerating them for another minute.
–Will
I’ve lived among and have had experiences with North American Indigenous groups who believed having a homosexual child was a blessing. Their reasoning was, while the rest of the siblings might marry and become involved with families of their own, the homosexual child would always be tired to the parents and care for them. In the absence of having homosexual children of their own, business owners are eager to hire homosexuals as they believe these firmly placed loyalties will bring them luck. Of course, these same groups are the ones that believe women handled best the policies of government, conducting business, and other employment that demanded good decision making skills. Apparently, the American, seeped in its centuries of cultural denial, hasn’t listened to a single lesson brought to them by their first people.
Part of me thinks that we may all better serve one another by “jumping the broom” and telling people we are married regardless of the stupid laws around them. If straight-folk begin eschewing government interference in their lives by making marriage a private/religious choice and not registering with the state, then people will take notice. If we want to do more we should stop falling for the traps of tax breaks and the resultant mid February shopping sprees that seems to be the only benifit of the government being involved in our marriages.
[QUOTE=grainnerhuad]If straight-folk begin eschewing government interference in their lives by making marriage a private/religious choice and not registering with the state, then people will take notice. [/QUOTE]
Why stop there? I say that we just disolve the entire institution of marraige altogether – it’s a relic of a patriarchal society that no longer exists. The only reason this institution exists in the first place was to ensure that the bloodline of the patrairchal male’s can be passed on (along with the male’s property – which includes all females in the family): this amounts to nothing more than self-perpetuation for its own sake.