People have often wondered why I had stopped ranting on this website as of late. To be honest, I have a new baby in the house, and I have worked diligently to be as happy as I could; to live as free from anger and frustration as I possibly could; to appreciate the softer, more subtle treasures of life and not focus so much on what puts people in the grave early.
Unfortunately like roaches coming out of the walls during a dinner party it seems there is no lack of idiots coming forward during times of an election. These rats will stop at nothing to lie or manipulate your vote out from under you. Things happen that we don’t like, for sure. Progress and change sometimes take time. That is a fact.
But on Tuesday, 81 percent of Tennessee voters approved a constitutional amendment that legally defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Now people please, no bullshit smokescreens here. Let’s put this out on the table for what it really is.
This is a religious argument that has forced its way into civil government. I’m not going to waste my time screaming separation of church and state here. I just want people to own up to what they believe and just admit what this issue really means. This is an issue of control.
Marriage is a civil union, not a religious one. Sure, most people get married in a church, and a minister may be the one who signs the papers, but everyone knows that it is a legal document, a legal contract, in fact one in which the signers are entitled some legal benefits, primarily in taxes, medical decisions, and occupational medical insurance. There is no religious benefit to getting married whatsoever. Keep this in mind.
The primary campaign against homosexual marriage that I have seen in Tennessee has centered on “protection of our holier than thou snow white pristine pure sacrosanct union of marital bliss.” There have been countless fliers, banners, billboards, TV spots, radio spots, and political streetwalking whores going door to door trying to convince us that by letting homosexuals marry somehow we are destroying traditional family values.
Family values, in fact, that are so traditional that it is perfectly reasonable to violate them if you happen to be hetero. I mean why else would the United States census report in 2001 that the rates of marriages ending in divorce have more than doubled in 50 years? Is it fear of homosexuals at the gate, waiting to charge in like Huns and destroy the holiness of marriage? Are the divorcing heteros simply accepting the inevitable fate of marriage if we allow these disgusting, drooling perverts to marry?
Or does it have something to do with the fact that heteros bring more problems into marriage, soiling the white linen, so to speak, than gays ever could hope to bring?
This somehow makes me think back to the issue of control. Since it is obviously fine for heteros to walk all over the traditional values of the holy union there must be some other, darker reason why we can’t let homosexuals marry. Maybe we should ask Representative Mark Foley. Maybe we should ask the Reverend Ted Haggard. Jimmy Swaggart? Bill Clinton? Is there ever a season that goes by where people in power or the public eye, frantically waiving the “save the values” flag, are involved in one sex scandal or another?
The simple answer is this is a religious issue. Many Christians think they somehow have the right to keep people who sin from having the same secular rights that they have. Maybe they think that if they prohibit gay marriage that somehow they will help rehabilitate gays? I have no idea. I can say that it is obvious that there is no legal reason why gays shouldn’t marry. And if they aren’t soiling the institution of marriage any more than heterosexuals already are, why keep it from them?
If the fact that this being a religious argument forcing its way into secular politics doesn’t table this entire issue in favor of allowing gays the right to marry, how about this?
Why would we allow for religious pundits to dictate our laws in the first place? Has anyone out there who wants to institutionalize their flavor of Christianity ever thought about what that actually means?
What the hell. Let’s do it. Let’s make Christianity the state religion of the United States and designate what rights we give to Christians and what rights we take away from heathens, especially the ones who sin most terribly. By the way, has anyone decided what type of Christianity we would implement? Do we want Mormons or Catholics or Presbyterians or Southern Baptists teaching our children their creation stories? Maybe we want Christian Scientists in our hospitals? How about as the elementary school nurse? I guess it doesn’t matter really. Christians get along. There wont be any problems with who gets what rights and privileges. Christians understand who is a heathen and who is not. They’ll be able to decide on the best government for all of us. After all, with so many denominations, hasn’t it been proven that they all can come to agree?
Now Christians, hear me out. I am not trashing you or your religion. I am only saying stay out of politics. Please stop trying to force people to your beliefs. Live your lives well. Free yourselves from scandal. Be happy. Bring people to you and your way of life through modeling. People, when seeing your happiness, will want to be like you. They will listen, and they will follow. But if you continually say “you must stop this now or be damned,” no one will listen.
And get rid of the Ted Haggards. They really REALLY make you look bad.
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3 comments:
Nice post!
Thanks. Sorry about the wrong statistic. I put that 62 percent had approved the amendment. It was actually quite worse. It was 81.
I agree with what you said about living your lives in a way that others will want to follow. In fact, I wrote about it myself in my blog.
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