I read this six-page article in The Atlantic this morning, about how views on gay marriage are changing. It's really quite good; I recommend it if you have time.
I was, for a long time, just not all that interested in the issue, but not because I was against it. How absurd to be against two adults wanting to make a lifelong commitment to each other! That's a no-brainer. I just took exception to the entire concept of governmental marriage licensing and consent. I always though the best scenario was for people to sign up for a lifetime together through the spiritual system of their choice, and then file that thing as a legal document for insurance, wills, etc.
Well, it does not get to be that way. Some of you think everyone with libertarian ideals is mean and selfish or nuts. No, an ideal is an ideal. How life is practiced in a group setting is a different story. It's call balance, children. We consider our ideals and then consider how to make the best of what we have. Hopefully the ideals can influence or inspire our actions, but not render us inert or combative.
Anyway. Since government is in control of marriage licenses, well, then, all adults should get to have em, if they want em, 14th Amendment-style. And realizing that, I could never stand idly by and say it's okay for some group of people to take it for themselves, and refuse to allow it for others. Once I heard people were actually voting on rights for others, well. I'd had enough. Moving to Ohio, where people were allowed to do that, made me feel a little sick inside.
Someone was quoted in the article this way, "it's still nerve-wracking to have our fundamental rights and freedoms decided by voters at the ballot box."
Voters don't all believe marriage is a fundamental right, of course. I don't really think it is, put that way. I just think you can't say it's a right for some people but not everybody. Two of my kids wouldn't be here if anti-miscegenation laws hadn't been struck down finally. It's not very grown-up to say that people who want a different sort of partner than you are not wanting commitment for the same reasons you want it. It's still just people.
People who say it's God's law but then want to legislate that, well, my answer is no. Because if you start saying only New Testament marriage is real, then you have to stop saying Old Testament wackiness along with it. You can't have it both ways anymore and make sense. Jesus's words are meant to teach you the intent of law, above the letter of it. And if you know your Bible and if you know history and if you know how governments are put together and operated, you must realize it's best for government not to be controlled by a mish-mash of religious rules. There'd be more tyranny than liberty, and the tyranny would not be all on your side.
When I was a Younger Person, the Christians I knew were sort of libertarian in ideal because they didn't want government to take away their freedom to practice their religion or teach their children, etc., however they chose. The more hand-wringing varieties now wish to do that which they once objected to; take away freedoms of others to practice their lives in their own way, by forcing legislation against them. That has never ended well in the history of ever.
It's time we revisited the topic of what are the Rights of Man and the duties of humanity. They're being obfuscated by fear and greed and beady-eyed prejudice. At this rate, the Vulcans are never gonna appear to congratulate us for having achieved warp drive, because they know we'd just find some addled way to use it against each other and against them.
"Being like Jesus" has absolutely nothing to do with any of that, anyway. Stop being against each other. Be for each other, and remember: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Shhh...
