I just added this to the My Left Wing MANIFESTO
Every time I hear some sanctimonious fuck spit out, “Marriage is between a man and a woman, in God’s eyes,” I think of the Max von Sydow line in “Hannah and Her Sisters:”
“If Jesus Christ came back and saw what people have been doing in his name, he would never stop throwing up.”
This is one of many issues that make me weep for humanity. When an entire minority is still disenfranchised in terms of civil rights and adequate political representation, I weep. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent, educated people still believe who someone sleeps with should determine his human rights, still believe that their God considers homosexuality an aberration worthy of eternal damnation to that imaginary construct they call “Hell,” I weep. I rage, too.
But…
…oh, how I long for the day when a powerful man or woman of conscience stands before the world and tells the truth: that homosexuality, regardless of it being a biological imperative or a “lifestyle choice,” is not a crime against man or god. That all men and women, irrespective of their sexual partners, are created equal and have equal rights under every law. That the dark ages are long gone and so should be every vestige of the fear, hatred and judgment of “different.” I long for the day when the collective liberal leadership of the world tells the rest of the world to GROW UP.
Perhaps then we might discover that the vast majority of people, when introduced to The Truth by articulate, passionate leaders of conscience and courage, will open up their eyes, ears, minds and hearts to that Truth. Just perhaps, mind you.
I am not a Christian or Jew or Muslim. While I do have a conception of a Higher Power that I choose to call god, I practice no religion. Further, I do not hold any part of the Bible or the Koran to be the word of god.
One of the basic tenets of the separation of Church and State is that at no time should the government of the United States of America be countenanced as a theocracy. Our laws, while oftentimes influenced by religious beliefs, are not dictated by the Bible (Old or New testament) or any religious text.
The definition of marriage in a religious context is not the definition of marriage in a legal context — period. I cite the words of the civil marriage ceremony: “By the power vested in me by the (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)…” NOT: “By the power vested in me by God…”
Separation of Church and State, while difficult to maintain at times, is crucial to the continuing evolution of a nation. As a person who does not recognize the validity of the Bible or any other religious text as being the word of god, I DEMAND that the government I support with my taxes and by whose laws I abide leave the religious beliefs of its members out of the equation when making those laws. I do not demand equality or even consideration from any religion; I consider myself and every other person not affiliated with a religion to be outside the sphere of those religions.
When the laws by which I am supposed to abide are dictated by those who would encroach upon my rights as a human being through their own religious beliefs, I must and will protest. I will fight. I am not a Christian, I am not a Jew, I am not a Muslim. I am a human being, and I WILL fight for my fellow human beings.
To Marilyn Musgrave and the frighteningly large number of politicians and religious leaders who would dictate to the rest of the world that their religious beliefs be enshrined in the Constitution and supported by draconian laws of exclusion and persecution of those who do not share their religious beliefs: You are engaged in malfeasance according to the very same God in whom you profess to believe.
And to every politician of conscience, regardless of religion: Stick to the Constitution.
* Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Blacks, Gays, Jews, Native Americans, Christians, Muslims, Japanese-Americans, Hispanics, Irish, Italians… oh, and Women
Have I left anyone out?
Because I know the aforementioned groups have all been, at one time or another (or all times) left out. Disenfranchised. Dismissed. Oppressed. Repressed. Persecuted. Enslaved. Brutalized.
Of course, one needn’t summon empathy for (let alone, come to the aid of) another segment of the world’s population that has suffered or is suffering what one’s own segment has suffered. No, no — This is different, after all. This group is completely different. These circumstances musn’t be compared to ours.
Such was the message transmitted by the 50 odd African-American religious leaders gathered in Washington, D.C. last year, on the anniversary of the Brown Versus the Board of Education decision that began in earnest the battle for the civil rights of African-Americans.
Denouncing the comparison between the struggle for African-American rights and gay rights, the most prominent rationale proposed by these so-called “men of god?” “Homosexuality is an abomination.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but at one time in this country, “miscegenation” was also considered (by a majority of the public, no less) to be “an abomination.”
Reverend Joseph Fuiten: “All of Western civilization has been a part of this idea going back to Plato and the Greeks and the Romans. Now, we have activist judges and renegade politicians who want to overthrow Western civilization, federal and state laws, and change the definition of marriage.”
Pardon me? Okay, let’s just bypass the obvious argument about Plato and the Greeks and all those little boys. Too, let us bypass the argument against Western “civilization” and the Catholic Church and all those little boys. I’ll even let slide the fact that most of the positive changes in Western Civilization and in federal and state laws were made by “activist judges and renegade politicians.”
Let’s concentrate on the fact that The Reverend and his peers in the African American religious community are using the same damned arguments against gay marriage that were used against civil rights. I don’t know how anyone can argue that this isn’t comparable. Gay people want equal protection and rights as promised them under the law. Blacks wanted equal rights and protections as promised them under the law. Gay rights opponents claim that the law is being warped to give special rights to gays. Civil rights opponents… well, you get the picture. Even the religious arguments are the same.
Oh, toss it — I’ll leave the rational arguments to those better qualified. This is a rant, goddamnit.
If anything makes me crazier than ignorance driven persecution, it is ignorance driven persecution perpetrated by a group of people who ought to know better.
Humans are one messed up species. We use our religions, our pocketbooks and our vicious rhetoric to attack anything we perceive as a threat to our status quo, irrespective of logic — let alone compassion. Change is a scary, scary thing. We just hate it when we’re asked to change our views, let alone our lives. And it appears we are willing to do just about anything to avoid dealing with it.
That includes engaging in behaviours that put our very own lives in misery when they were practiced against us. Hatred born of fear rules the day; deliberate blindness to our own fear based hatred enables it to go unchecked — by us, at least. We are dragged, kicking and screaming, into change that in retrospect was long overdue. Fifty years later, high school children have absolutely no concept of how revolutionary Brown v. Board of Education was; they look upon the facts of life fifty years ago with the same sort of bemused astonishment that we feel when we watch a period film and realize that birthmarks were for centuries considered to be a sign of demonic possession.
In fifty years, the only people against gay marriage will be those relegated to the marginalized closets of homophobia where they belong; I’m sure they will have some racist company in there. Hatred never dies completely — it goes on life support underground, awaiting its chance to emerge and be fed.
For what is their actual argument, after all? If they would make legal unions between gay people illegal, and deny those gay people equal protection under the law, would they not, by extension, make homosexuality itself illegal? If it is, as they claim, “an abomination,” then they must, ipso facto, demand the illegality of homosexuality. You cannot call something an abomination in one breath and in the next admit you are willing to overlook it if the state refuses to sanction its legitimacy. You must demand a return to sodomy laws.
Which makes you no better than those who would have liked to return to the days of slavery. No better, I say. Possibly worse — at least they had ignorance on their side, the easier to forgive when they saw the light, if they ever did. You who would hide your hatred in the pages of your religious texts, knowing full well the volumes of data that prove a homosexual can no more change his sexuality than you can the colour of your skin — you are in the wrong.
And I would submit that the God you profess to worship would tell you the same. (These texts you laud as the word of god are, to many others, merely your interpretation of the word of your god, in whom may of us believe not a whit. But leave that aside for the moment.)
If you insist upon using those texts to rationalize your arguments of hatred, I will happily take up that challenge. Nowhere in the New Testament of the Bible does your purported saviour, Jesus Christ, denounce homosexuality. He makes a good argument for homosexual marriage, in fact, in denouncing extra-marital sex.
He also says a few things about judging your neighbour and loving your neighbour. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
He makes a pretty good argument for separating church and state, too — “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”
But most important: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thy say to thy brother, “Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?” Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
If your brother does, indeed, have a mote in his eye, I submit that you are too blind to judge it accurately, since the beam in your own spans continents and centuries.
Contrary to popular myth, “marriage” and “civil unions” are not the same; changing the term drastically changes the meaning as well. As mentioned above, marriage is approximately 1,500 reciprocal rights, privileges and obligations, 1,000 from the feds and about 500 from the state. A civil union, on the other hand, is a term coined by the Vermont legislature to avoid granting the “m” word to gay and lesbian couples. Because federal law does not recognize civil unions, a civil union provides only the 500 state conferred rights, privileges and obligations associated with marriage with none of the 1,000+ federal benefits.
But that is not the only difference. In addition to being denied federal benefits, rights and responsibilities, civil unions lack portability – so couples do not have the security of relationship recognition when traveling to other states. So although civil unions may provide a couple some protections at home, when they go on vacation, travel on business or otherwise leave the state, the couple will likely once again be relegated to the status of legal strangers.
Domestic partnership laws provide even fewer protections than civil unions and can vary dramatically depending on the jurisdiction that enacts the law. In some jurisdictions, domestic partner registries do not confer any rights or responsibilities at all and are simply a registration. In other jurisdictions, domestic partners are given a few protections, such as the right to hospital visitation. (The most generous local domestic partnership laws only provide about 10-15 rights). Currently, only three states, Hawaii, New Jersey and California, provide more comprehensive rights and responsibilities under their domestic partnership registration systems. At the local level, most domestic partnership laws provide benefits for public employees and little or nothing else.
So, to return to the initial question, why not just settle for civil unions or domestic partnerships? 1,500 (M) vs. 500 (CU) vs. 10-15 (DP). But what’s in a name, right? As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently pointed out, “The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.”
Now, then. Leaving aside the fact that the federal government does not explicitly recognize civil unions and therefore none of the 1000 or so federal rights accorded married persons will ever be accorded to “civilly united” persons…
This proposed amendment would do far more than simply deny same-sex couples marriage equality. According to Evan Wolfson, a leading legal expert on marriage and executive director of Freedom to Marry, an organization which supports marriage rights for same sex couples, the White House and “the Christian right” are “being deliberately deceptive.” According to Wolfson, the “vague and sweeping language” of the proposed amendment’s second sentence “is intended to deny any other measure of protection, including civil unions and domestic partnerships.”
If the Musgrave amendment is passed, the issue before us will no longer be whether same-sex couples should receive 1,500 or 500 or 10-15 rights. If passed, the amendment could mean that same sex couples would be denied ALL of the federal AND state rights, privileges and obligations of marriage. Families headed by same-sex couples would be officially denied equal treatment and constitutionally branded as second class citizens.
And… voila. Now not only does the federal government not RECOGNIZE civil unions, but the MUSGRAVE Amendment has just invalidated all the rights accorded the “civilly united.”
Now tell me again how there’s no fucking difference.
appears to know no bounds.
This is crossposted… everywhere.
And a damn good rant it was!
Maryscott, you make me want to swear and cuss all over the place. In a good way 🙂
AMEN
thanks MSOC. Not really sure why – but GLBT rights are “my issue” – that’s where I really get fired up on both the political and theological sides.
Frederick Buechner describes one’s vocation as the point “where my deepest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”
it’s different for all of us – despite being a ‘straight” white married male – this fight is one of my vocations. I speak out for some tremendous friends I have – most of whom are out and vocal – a few of whom cannot really be yet.
I’m going to be posting some stuff I’ve done on this – testimony to the KS House against our state amendment, misc articles and emails – on My Left Wing (and probably crossposted at BT) in the near future – need to take some time to focus them a bit (edit comments that refer to things in the room at a session I led, etc that won’t make any sense out of context).
Thanks for your “verbostity” and the manifesto itself
http://www.soapblox.net/myleftwing/showDiary.do?diaryId=134
My testimony to the KS House back in January.
What a wonderful speech, which I have saved to refer back to. Anyone listening to that and thinking about what you said obviously already had their mind made up.
I should have added that anyone interested in this whole debate or wants any talking points should follow the link to It’s testimony.
I’ve been puzzling over this one, too. All these “loving Christians” who are seemingly concrete in their beliefs and “vows”, somehow are more threatened by what others do in the privacy of their own home than they are about their constitution being raped by a warmongering administration.
It’s the “us vs them” theology that has enveloped these rightwing religious zealots from day one… they can feel holy as long as they can point their righteous finger at another and judge them less than.
The last time they mixed politics with religion, people were hung and pressed for being witches.
And… doesn’t it just beat all that the Homeland Security doesn’t look into the TRUE domestic terror??? Right now hate crimes are on the rise. Why aren’t htey looking into it? Why isn’t this a national concern? Let’s look at the true terror within our borders… white supremacy hate groups that are drenched in religion…
Sounds like Bush Supporters to me.
Um. Didn’t that Jesus fellow do this, back when he disposed of the Levitical purity laws?
Then again, these loons ignore everything else he says, so…
I have no clue what Mr. Kurtz’ political leanings are, but I think someone needs to get permission from him (or encourage him to) use the last panel of this PvP strip for a t-shirt or bumper sticker or something.
Maryscott,
This is NOT about gay marraige. This is WAAAAAAAAAy bigger. If gay marraige were made illegal in all states would all the people fighting lay down and die? Nope. Birth control is the next fight. Then no-fault divorce. Prohibition of martial rape. Laws against domestic violence. Oral sex. Divorce. All down the drain.
The is about
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP.
Not the freedom to worship the right way according to the Senate.
When the Unitarians take one side, the Catholics take the other, and the Presbyterians cannot decide then the LAST thing we want to do is ammend the Constitution.
The personal is political and the political is MUCH BIGGER than a few commitment ceremonies.
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP.
The only problem with your rant is that it was too short ;->
My Rant on Gays and the Church…
ok – it’s less a rant and more a sermon that I gave at my UMC back in January – challenging my church to become more intentional about it’s already welcoming stance.
It went over very well – and the wheels are (slowly) turning towards some more official steps.
Thought some might be interested – posted it on dKos back in Feb 05
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/10/215914/486
a ‘christian’ country. and while there may be a great number of ‘christians’ in this country, that does not make it a ‘christian’ country. no one is trying to take away their rights to believe what they want. there are people in this country that do not do the bible thing. i am one of them. and they say they don’t want their tax dollars paying for x and y… but i don’t want my tax dollars paying for the iraq war! i don’t want my tax dollars going to religious organizations, no matter what they pretend their intentions are!
but i don’t get a say in that! the fact of the matter is, that we all end up paying for things that we may not believe in. its a fact of life. and you don’t get to decide for me what i can and can’t agree with! if you don’t believe in gay marriage… don’t marry someone of the same sex. if someone else believes in gay marriage, then who are you to tell them whether they can engage in it or not!
i don’t believe in church. so does that mean it is ok for me to outlaw churches! i don’t believe in the bible… so then i guess i can ban the bible. what? would i be infringing on your rights? would that be wrong? how is one wrong and the other right? you can’t have it both ways. you are not the only people that live in this country!
do i feel my marriage threatened by gays? by gay marriage? i will put it to you this way… my husband’s best friend is gay. i think if anyone would feel a need to be threatened, someone whose best friend is gay would. but i don’t. bob has gone to a gay bar with his friend… didn’t bother me any. why? because i know bob. and i trust bob. and he loves me. and people who feel threatened have other issues to deal with besides gay marriage.
This was a lovely rant! And true and real and righteous.
I still can’t wrap my mind around the concept that not marching in lockstep with someone elses religion is an attack on that religions adherents right to freedom of worship-this seems to be the battle cry and it is so out of touch with any reality I know that I just end up staring blankly at the people promoting it. Then I usually laugh….probably not a winning strategy.
It’s nice to see such strong support for marriage equality from straight folks. While it’s gotten better the past few years, unfortunately even amongst liberals there’s too much capitulation (mostly of the civil unions flavor) to the right wing bigots who ultimately want to make everything about being queer illegal.
What a lot of people don’t understand, I think, is that in most places it’s still perfectly legal to discriminate against queers in housing, employment, and most any other aspect of social negotiation crucial to survival. Marriage equality wouldn’t solve all these problems, but it would be a huge help. Civil unions will only further entrench the notion that queers are “different” than everyone else and therefore ought be governed as second class citizens (whilst continuing to be taxed as first class citizens, natch).
Like I always say: any one group’s right to not be offended is never more important than any other group’s right to equality under the laws of a secular democratic republic.
http://tinyurl.com/9zqzl For anyone interested this link leads you to ‘Marriage Equality USA’…which in turn lets you log onto your state and then breaks it down into each county so you can sign up. You’ll get updates on what bills are going on in your state for instance of what is happening in your county that you should know about or write letters about, etc.
Of course the emails I now get automatically seem to assume I am gay. I’ve found it a very good site and good way to be informed on state and federal matters concerning equality.
Thanks very much for the rant. Couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve been know to become either a frothing at the mouth or speechless with anger when up against anyone who spews this kind of crap about marriage for people who happen to be gay.
As far as I’m concerned being born gay is no different than being born as I was with red hair and brown eyes. Yet when sex gets thrown into the equation perfectly rational people otherwise just start to freak out and have their insanely ugly fucken prejudices rear it’s vile little head.
And when these fuckers start spouting the history and/or sanctity of marriage I always wonder if they even know any of the history of marriage? Marriage customs and rituals have evolved over the millenniums and is still not the same all over. Marriage if I remember right as an institution that was sacred started in the Catholic church and not that many centuries ago while the Puritans who landed here didn’t believe in marriage as a ritual ceremony? Or that there was no ‘marriage ceremony’ per se in the Old Testament.
Anyone happen to know if there are any good books written on the history of marriage by the way?
Might I suggest A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom?
Thanks Jennifer, I will put that on my book wish list.
do with marriage. up until the 1300s there was no religious aspect to marriage. for a couple hundred years after that, the church would bless marriages afterwards. then they took over completely… because they wanted to control marriage. they wanted to make it harder to get married– cousins… relatives of married cousins… yada yada… and they made it harder to divorce as well….
i did a thing on this a while back at dkos. oh yes… marriage was sure sacred! women were considered property. the original intent of the ring was as a downpayment, according to some sites i went to. something you really want to preserve huh! so don’t buy the line of bs the church tries to sell. they were not the inventors of marriage. they,as always, wanted to control everything… so they hijacked it.