The first thing that everyone needs to think about first when the topic of gay marriage in America comes up is that it really, truly is neither about religion nor politics. Okay, it is about politics to some extent because the problem with gay marriage is that it will impact tax law, which is something that politicians do have to worry about. But before I expand on that, let me explain to you why gay marriage has nothing fundamentally to do with religion or politics.
First, it has nothing to do with religion because even the most zealous follower of whatever orthodox Christian religion would most likely not disown (or kill) their child if they found out that he/she is homosexual. I know that religious types who gather and protest anything that looks at homosexuality positively would say otherwise while they are in their organized group but the fact remains that I cannot believe that, overall, people would actually hate their children if they were to come out. Would they have egg on their face? Absolutely. Would the child in question delay as long as possible the news that he or she is gay to their overly zealous parents? No doubt. But do not confuse fear of confronting parents (you were once afraid of confronting yours on far more frivolous things than “Mom, Dad, I think I’m gay”) with all anti-gay parents acting like third-world dictators behind closed doors.
Now, the religious types can say that the Bible explicitly dictates that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman but this, to me, is just an example of grasping at the last possible straw that can be grasped at. This argument is very much in line with when a mom pulls out the “Because I said so” card to a child or, in a more stark societal sense, arguing that black people were born to rank underneath white people during the times of slavery (of which the Church was okay with during that time). By couching the argument in religious terms (i.e.—referencing a specific passage in the Bible and stamping a collective meaning to it) it has now become assumed that the argument is to be the settled within the domain of Religion. Except that we live in a country in which Religion is assumed to be separate from the State. And this says nothing to the fact that Religion is somewhat pliable, especially Christian religion: most moderate Christians and Catholics (which make up the majority of America, despite what television and political pundits would love you to believe otherwise w/r/t such questionable things such as The Christian Coalition or any orthodox right-winger who can be summarily dismissed as a “nut job” by the clear-minded folk) do not believe that women should be subservient to their man; do not believe that women absolutely cannot hold meaningful positions within the church; do not believe that it is wrong for almost every business to be open on Sundays; believe that contraception is not only smart, but that pre-marital sex is healthy and a moral positive as well; believe that a lot of the Bible is something that can help guide you to a better life but that not all of it is literally truthful (i.e.-Moses was probably not 900 years old, Jonah probably didn’t really take up residence inside of a whale, etc.). All of these things that are, in some way or another, written in the bible as a thing that everyone should believe in, but nowadays is looked at as something that does not need to be literally accepted en masse. We allow for shortcuts to be taken.
Religion is ultimately malleable; it’s just that it takes an inordinate amount of time to come around. (For instance, every single country outside of Europe at some point was looked at as nothing more than land that grew heathens and now?… not so much.) The Vatican will one day overturn its stance on contraception and it will one day officially recognize a female Pope. It will happen, if only because they will not voluntarily allow themselves to be irrelevant.
Mark Twain once wrote that a banker is a person who will lend you an umbrella when the sun is shining but demand it back once it begins to rain. This same logic can apply to many hard-line, orthodox religious followers: we will virulently uphold a doctrine of love for Mankind, preach tolerance, and praise God for His building a truly beautiful and spectacular world for us in which to live in and spread His word to to others… unless you disagree with us. Then, God suddenly becomes a wrathful and petty God, keeping names in a ledger so as to not permit the non-believers’ entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
From a religious standpoint, this is where I think the disconnect is w/r/t gay marriage. Because we live in a society where seemingly only the extreme points of view (whether in the arenas of politics, religion, sports, entertainment, etc.) are given mainstream access, the people who are opposed to gay marriage get more face time because there is more passion involved in those interviews or sound bites. It is easier to get a better interview out of someone who will say (or is waving a placard that says) something like “God hates faggots!” This, in turn, causes the gay community (and heterosexual people who believe that the “God hates faggots!” crowd is wrong) to get involved in a war of words that reduces both parties to the lowest common denominator—even religious people who only passively believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman are seen as backwards or hick-ish; gay people are seen as caricatures—and then you have both groups trying to lobby the government into getting on board with their side.
Here is where the government comes into this equation.
A lot of members of the government simply love to take money from groups and lobbyists with the notion that they will fight to pass whatever bill or law said group wants them to pass, speak out against, or trump up publicly. It is a great and easy way to make money. The problem with gay marriage in terms of our government is that, from a tax perspective, gay marriage opens up a veritable Pandora’s box (i.e.-your basic tax code stuff: there would eventually be new deductions and/or credits for gay couples and gay couples who adopt children and it would eventually ruffle the normal knee-jerk feathers of those who are anti-gay).
The government has no incentive to get into this with a pure mind because many of its members are waiting to get paid by their constituents who are either for or against gay marriage (mostly from the anti crowd) and will continue to rely on that money for as long as they possibly can. Religion has tainted the social aspect of gay marriage and government has tainted the logical aspect of it. This all really should be a no-brainer. Why?
And but now I hope you will see that what this is all about—love. Men and women fall in love with each other all of the time—sometimes, their love is unconditional and centers around a mutual, unfettered fascination with each other; sometimes, their love is co-dependent and revolves around chaos; other times, their love is something unplanned, spawned on by the arrival of an unexpected child. Love is something that is both indescribable and—consciously or subconsciously—passionately desired by all.
While you may not inherently understand why a woman would fall in love with another woman or a man with another man, the question of whether it is right or wrong is ultimately not up to you (especially if you are a heterosexual person). Nor should it fall into the domain of the federal government or organized religion to come up with a unified and all-encompassing opinion as to its legality or publicly recognized existence. By making this argument a political or religious debate, everyone conveniently leaves out love from the equation, mostly because no one wants to be seen as someone who is anti-love (whereas pro-Bible and pro-Constitution are always easy causes to join).
So, after all is said and done, what is my solution to all of this? First and foremost, the ultimate solution is for the current older generations—the ones who are unyielding in their opinion that homosexuality is debaucherous and sinful—to die off. Unfortunately, the issue of gay marriage will not get a serious widespread embrace until this generational shifts occur. This is similar to the treatment of blacks, too, in that it took a generational shift to weed out the people who still clung to the archaic outlook of black people that dictated that they should have never received rights to begin with.
In the meantime, though, I think the federal government should stay out of the gay marriage debate and even publicly come out and say that they will do nothing about it and that they will recognize gay marriage for what it is and make no changes to the federal tax code (i.e.—no separate tax credits, deductions, etc. for gay couples). The state governments, on the other hand, should be allowed to pass their own laws and make available whatever credits and deductions to gay couples that they see fit within their own state. That way, states can elect to be to progressive and forward-thinking if they want to w/r/t gay marriage, or they can elect to fall in line with the status quo and do nothing about it. But, in this example, if a state that doesn’t have large metropolitan areas and is in need of an influx of population to boost their economy (say, for the purposes of this example, Idaho) incentivizes gay couples to move to its state (for instance, a $2,000 standard deduction or a $4,000 deduction for gay couples that adopt a child, etc.) you would have a modernized Homestead Act to try and get more people to move out of the traditionally dense metro areas that are so overburdened by the recessive economic forces at play right now.
I do not know if the above example would work but I think it is a good starting point in terms of progressing the conversation about gay marriage. And, at the very least, it is a good starting point because the church and the federal government have been left out of the equation. Because, ultimately, this is a topic that should be about love and not about constitutional amendments and/or verses from the Book of Leviticus.
But if you are reading this and you are of the mindset that the Book of Leviticus provides the proper amount of gravity on this topic and that you find homosexuality to be repulsive in every sense of the word and it is something that should be shunned by all, I do understand where you are coming from. Your reality dictates that a different set of teachings and morals w/r/t homosexuality were in play for you than for others. I truly understand that. I just happen to disagree with it.
And by fervently upholding one passage in the Bible and pointing to it as the end-all, be-all showstopper—the checkmate of all checkmates—while allowing for other passages to be malleable (or even outright excused, such as Leviticus 15:19-24 and Leviticus 19:27) is, to me, a sure sign of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. And I am pretty sure that almost every form of rational religion (and moral and ethical outlook) tries to teach you that that principle is deeply flawed and, thus, not applicable on this topic.
Or, to put it another way: throughout the course of the history of mankind here are some of the things various groups of humans knew were correct. The Earth is flat; the Sun revolves around us; dreams are the direct pipeline to God; the concept of gravity is ludicrous; women who give birth to twins or multiples should be ostracized; owning slaves is man’s divine right; killing in the name of God is okay, killing in the name of anything else is grounds for public execution; the Jews were responsible for various cultural problems and needed to be executed; that if you engaged in masturbation, anything ranging from an addicition to it to blindness to excommunication would befall you; cigarettes pose no health risks; kids can become homosexual simply by being around gay people. Basically, we are prone to wanting to believe in conventional wisdom and the conventional wisdom surrounding homosexuality—that it’s wrong because the Bible says so, that gay teachers would be detrimental in a school, that it should not be recognized because a gay marriage cannot produce natural birth, that it’s a biological anomaly because of the last statement—is backwards and misguided.
And future generations will look back at us with regards to this much like we do now in looking back at how the first industrial generations allowed child labor to occur for as long as it did: How was this debate allowed to go on as long as it did?
We should know better by now.
