Yesterday, the state of North Carolina voted in favor of Amendment One in a rather large margin, 61% in favor to 39% against. For all you non Carolinians, Amendment One is an amendment to North Carolina's constitution that says marriage will only be recognized by the state if it is only between a man and a woman. In addition, it breaks up domestic partnerships, even heterosexual ones.
What this discussion always reverts back to is religion. With NC located in the "bible belt" it doesn't really come as a surprise. What is irritating, however, is that civil liberties, historically, are often struck down by religious beliefs of some sort or another. Discrimination propagated by religion dates back to the very first days of organized religion. It is a simple exercise to see this without even looking in to the history books. Most religious groups form a group and then cast out everyone else as "other". The "other" can have varying degrees of "bad" but they are not good, because they don't follow the set of the beliefs that the dominant religious group believes in. So there is an inherent inner discrimination towards the "others" that also distances the two apart. This instinctive discrimination by the religious group can only be seen as "right" because they are "normal" and their whole lives have only known what "normal" is.
We can apply some of this same logic to the justification of slavery.. Here is the logic that most likely went through some of these bigots' heads. I am an upstanding Christian. These people are black. They are nothing like me, they are not "normal". I am right, they are wrong, I own them religiously.
Same with women. (From the perspective of a man). Women were made from Men. Women should defer to Men. They are different, and therefore not "right". I own them in whatever way I can justify it.
Those might be gross generalizations, but remarkably it still holds today. (From the perspective of a straight person) I am straight, this is normal. I am taught homosexuality is wrong in the bible, and I feel that it is "wrong". Therefore I own their rights by outvoting them and don't feel bad because I am of higher moral standing.
Historically, the pressures of civil liberties groups have caused many Christian groups to change their stances on these very polarized issues. What was seen as "normal" years ago is now seen as downright oppressive and wrong. I know that 60 years from now gay rights will fall in this same category..pretty pathetic
It's funny because there's supposed to be a separation of church and state, but when the majority of politicians and voters are Christian there is hardly a separation. So my challenge for all those staunchly opposed to gay marriage is to first ask yourself: are you okay with interracial marriage? The answer is most likely yes. Now why aren't you okay with gay marriage in the sense of the law? Should you even able to make that sort of a decision for somebody else at the state or federal level? Because, no one is arguing to change the definition of what it says in the Bible. Last time I checked secular law doesn't change the practices or beliefs of a religion.
So now if you take the two apart and are still opposed to gay marriage in the sense of the law, that just makes you selfish and unloving of thy neighbors who are "normal" in their own right as they too were "created by God".
Go ahead, argue with me.
email is dehomi@gmail.com
or you know where to find me on facebook.
-Mi
