My name is Doug, and I have a penis.
My wife's name is Elena, and she has a vagina.
Our neighbors are Tom and Kevin. Each has a penis, like I do.
Elena and I wed in 2004 and have since led a blissful life together.
Tom and Kevin have also led a blissful life together.
They have not wed, however. That's only because they live in New Jersey where blissful marriages between two people with penises or vaginas have not yet been welcome.
If this all sounds even loosely juvenile so far, that's because it is.
I write this passage having just attended the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee's Marriage Equality hearing on bill S-1967, a local ordeal not surprisingly given national attention in light of Prop 8 and similar goings-on. The good news: the bill passed. The bad news: it passed by a mere 7-6 and heads to a full Senate where the uphill climb extends far into the stratosphere.
My wife and I both signed up to testify as the straight white couple eternally confounded by this iniquity. Sadly, we never gained the opportunity to speak due to the confines of time. Gladly, we were superseded by dozens of courageous men, women and children who spoke eloquently, passionately and persuasively about the unfathomable suffering they have endured.
Proponent arguments ranged from the honorable civil rights champion, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who sent an incisive statement urging the bill's passage to NAACP chairman, Julian Bond, who delivered an in-person entreaty that stirred souls, and even a 10 year old who spoke about explaining civil unions to classmates... "They look at us like we're from Mars."
Opponent arguments included Senator Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen County, who waged his concern that passage of said bill would encourage more people to choose to be gay, followed by a rabbi who extolled "...think what's in store for the innocent child", supplemented by a layperson who dropped nuts, bolts and screws upon a hearing table to illustrate how things can and cannot work.
But as we walked from the capitol building this evening wondering if there ever were to be a true fait accompli, I kept wondering what, in fact, was the nucleus of such disdain for this otherwise no-brainer. And then it hit me. Through all levels of tenor this night, there were but two critical words never to enter testimony... penis, vagina.
Are we afraid that this marriage-for-all-amendment is just a social experiment the likes of which will fail the very continuance of our species?
Or are we just plain afraid to admit that the "penis" and the "vagina" have some serious answering to do.
What we do know is that our masses have most certainly been afraid of doing what is morally unambiguous, largely because of its effect on political constituencies, professional careers, religious affiliations and personal ties.
By labeling marriage an "institution" to which a man and woman have exclusive access, we have shamefully rendered a glorious union into an ostensible slog.
Do ANY of us really wish to live in an institution anyway?
I want to live in a HOME where I am loved and can love back every minute of every day in an equal and uncompromising way.
Luckily, my wife and I have all the accoutrements to do that, namely one penis and one vagina. But there are those in my very own family who get stopped far short of what I have because of their anatomical sameness and the law shaking its finger, "No-no, uh-uh." Because they are not straight, are they somehow crooked?
My wife and I live in an historic, reemerging, New Jersey neighborhood... a melting pot of African Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanics, and yes, gay people. We wake up to real life every day, not some deeply edited version of what some people think life ought to look like. This IS America, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, until death do us part.
Therefore, the very fact that we had to appear in Trenton to defend our America was and is an infinite insult and a disgrace. 45 states that similarly deny our citizens this most basic of rights should be mortified by such myopia.
Vast numbers of folks are just plain afraid that acknowledging what is equitable will somehow make them weak, vulnerable and unwelcome in familiar places. But it is our gay brothers and sisters who are the ones unjustly unwelcome in the most familiar of places.
Why are we so afraid to welcome them? Why are we so afraid to welcome anything but the status quo, anything but life's rich pageant? I have never heard an argument that is judicious or vaguely relevant. As infantile as this may sound, all there is is the fear of two penises, two vaginas. Nothing more, nothing less.
If over 40 percent of heterosexual first marriages currently end in divorce, 60 percent of second marriages and 70 percent of third attempts, it is downright preposterous for us straight folks to proclaim our holier-than-thou arguments. Yet, according to the National Center For Vital Statistics, Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been running strong for 5 years, retains the national title as the lowest divorce rate state.
4,000 years ago, in what anthropologists deemed the bare beginning of marriage,
clusters of a few dozen people were led by several testosterone-fueled males who shared and governed multiple women and children. Some might jest that sounds like today's modern family. The point is, however, most of us are fully aware that times have changed, and so too must the ways by which we move through time. Otherwise, we will deny ourselves the growth we so long for and the dignity we certainly all deserve.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."
How can it possibly not be time that America acknowledges marriage for one and all? Otherwise, the people of this nation must exercise their right and responsibility to abolish this failed form and reinstitute it altogether.
I live in Florida not in the backwoods but in what I like to think of as a more progessive city. So why is it that when anyone finds out Im a lesbian there this look of confusion because I look like what they have held so highly sacred to their white straight world.... AND its even more shocking that I have male friends, dont hate my father, and I was never molested.... seriously they ask...how, what, why... my response" I was born this way"... and THAT is harder for them to stomach; sooo if I told you I was molested by my father, that would make you feel more comfortable????? That is rediculous.
The gay vs. straight gist of his argument is called a FALSE DICOTOMY.
The real battle is the cultural left and its sexual revolution VS traditional sexual ethics.
That’s what has led to 40% illegitimacy rates and 50% divorce rates to begin with.
"Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don't confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage."
Walter Fauntroy- Former DC Delegate to Congress Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on DC
"Opponent arguments included Senator Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen County, who waged his concern that passage of said bill would encourage more people to choose to be gay..."
It''s freightening to think that someone believes the idea that homosexuality is a choice and that marriage equality will lead to more people being gay. It's horrifying to think this person has been elected to public office, represents a constituency, and is responsible to cast votes on legistlation in a state which is part of the US.
Religion is about exclusion and power. It's like any club. Some are in, some are out.
I don't see much hope for gay marriage simply due to blind prejudice. By all means, voters, take your marching orders from a prophet who lived thousands of years ago. Follow your orders. Don't use your head. In your club, it is not allowed. Sheesh.
I quit organized religion when I was 15.
There are two ways to resolve this:
1. The state sanctions only civil unions, and marriage remains a strictly church definition.
2. All unions are declared marriage, and the churches can recognize those that they wish to.
Either way, all legal and civils rights, responibilities, and perks should be equal.
And guess what? My marriage doesn't suffer at all!
This is state-sanctioned bigotry.
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The Duggar's immediately come to mind. Frickin' 19? Really? 19? Can you imagine what is going to happen to that family when two or three Billy Bob's come out of the closet? Their lives are going to crumble!
Bravo! Truly brilliant article and analysis of the root problem.
Only the insecure feel a need to keep others down, and that's what this is, delegating an entire segment of our population to second class citizenry. Not only is this illegal, it is immoral, and no self-righteous, moralizing, ignoramus will ever convince us otherwise.
That's exactly right. Proponents of traditional marriage hold it in esteem by stating that the one man - one woman union has been the one and only relationship for thousands of years, a "sacred" "institution".
But to claim that we have always had this level of perfection, that we have had the correct answer under our belts since, well, forever, and that these new "changes" are going to destroy this perfection? That's horribly dangerous thinking.
Morality has grown throughout history. Our understanding of what is right and what is wrong has been developed over years of hardships, teachings and lessons. If it hadn't, then it's likely we'd still be controlled by despots, women would be property, and people would be killed for the smallest of infractions.
Just because we want to change the concept of marriage to include two consenting adults that have identical "naughty parts", does not mean that we're spitting in the face of a perfect understanding and roadmap of the world. It just means that we're growing to a better understanding and treatment of ourselves and the world around us.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. For many people - and I would say many of them are men - the whole issue around gay people comes down to the sex acts they think we engage in. It's icky. And icky cannot be allowed out in public. If it's allowed in public, they may have to admit it exists.
But gays aren't asking to be allowed to bring their sex acts to the public (lol).
It's just that certain members of the public seem overly concerned with and sleazily focused on what our gay citizens may be doing behind closed doors, in the privacy of their own homes.
I call that an invasion of privacy and voyeurism.
These are some sick puppies, who strangely enough, see no contradictions in their "moral stance".