On The Issue Of Gay Marriage

By

H. Kent Craig

 

 

          This whole debate about so-called “gay marriage” just tickles the life out of me. Why? Because those opposed to the concept of a legal union between two partners of the same gender on the basis that would be one of the end-times-signs that the end of civilization is coming soon are so just plain wrong as to sound silly even to themselves when they hear themselves speak such nonsense, and those that are promoting gay marriage on the basis that they should have the same rights as an opposite-gendered couple are, unfortunately, wrong also but not for the reasons they think I might harbor, since I support, not oppose, gay marriage.

 

        The concept of “marriage” as an institution is so rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage with all its millennia of trappings that to try to pry the wedding cake from the cold fingers of the institution and eat it with a new face isn’t going to happen. Even when gay marriages become totally legal and recognized, they will never be equal in society’s eyes to those of a male/female couple.

 

        Why? Because male/female marriages, from a strictly legal point of view, are all about creating lineal traceability of descendants and property, not much more, not much less. Since gay couples can’t combine their DNA and produce a genetically-shared offspring, not yet with current medical and scientific technology at least, most people even those who support the concept of legal unions for gay people will never not in the privacy of their innermost personal thoughts even consider a gay marriage to be the moral equivalent to a non - gay one.

 

        Does that concern those gay people who want to get legally married, or should it? I certainly hope not! A legal marriage will ensure the traceability of community property and the legal right to treat their spouse as their voluntary community property as well on such matters as living wills and other medical and legal quagmires. A legal gay marriage will become what is for straight marriages too, a public expression not just of long-term affection but also of interpersonal commitment. Any institution in which two or more people contract to behave as responsible, thoughtful, law-abiding, mortgage-paying, tax-paying, community-involved citizens can only be a good thing, never a bad thing.

 

        As is with all major change in any society, this revolution that is driving the legalization of gay marriage in America is another example of the proverbial kicking in of the rotten door. Most people in America truly don’t care if their neighbor is gay or if their neighbor is gay that said neighbor may or may not have a union legally recognized or not with whomever they happen to also share their home with. What most Americans do care about is that their neighbor isn’t a nuisance, that they are nice, that have normal lives much like themselves. Right-wing fear-based mongering aside, most Americans truly don’t care about whom someone else sleeps with or doesn’t.

 

        What the gay community needs to understand and accept, though, and learn when to shut up about it is that most Americans while supporting the reality of gay marriage, will never accept any same-sex union as being truly equal as on opposite-sex one. This is because of human nature being the way it is, folks, and if you have a problem with your neighbor supporting your right to unite but not inviting you over to their next Tupperware party, then the problem is then with you, not them.

 

        In the end, it’s all about love, God’s love for mankind, mankind’s love for God, our need to love and be loved by others, to be in love with someone special and have someone special in our lives be in love with us, and God truly doesn’t care whom you love, only that  you love, that and it’s also about finding out why the call the progressive income tax system we’re under the anti-progressive income tax system since GDINK’s (Gay Double Income No Kids couples) will soon be hit with the same unfair “marriage penalty” that we straights have had to put up with ever since the current tax system was adopted in 1903, among many other constraints and unfairnesses that society burdens all legally-bound couples with, gay or straight. Good luck is all I can say, ladies, gentlemen!

 

 

 

 

    {Back To Deeply Personal Page}     {Feedback}