I fully admit it.
Like many others in the culture, I was slow coming around to accepting gay marriage as a civic right.
Yes, as a young person, brandishing civil rights for African Americans, intolerant of racial prejudice, huge fan of The Diary of Anne Frank and opposing the awful things we did to each other in the name of religion or against a religion, pushing strongly for democracy and openness everywhere I could, still felt squeamish when it came to gay people. Growing up, I probably tolerated more jokes and slander about this group than any other.
But thankfully, over time, I learned that gay people were just that - people like me, just like everybody else. They ran the gamut of personalities and types, with the only thing different being how they were hard wired for sexuality. That being gay wasn't a choice or defiance or lark, but that it was a an essential genetic part of their nature.
Coming out of the closet and into the open, as many LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals) have done has been a very scary, but ultimately very smart thing for them to do. Because now it's not just being intolerant of an abstract - it's being intolerant of your neighbor, a family member, somebody you work with and respect, somebody who loves God like you do and is beside you at church. A conservative Republican Senator recently came out in favor of gay marriage because his own son was gay and he could not deny any longer recognizing the love his son had for someone else and affording the same recognition that others could receive.
This is a political article, not a religious one. Religious groups, I guess, can be as intolerant as they want as to who they recognize being married or not. In some churches some hetero couples don't even pass muster. Some will not allow divorced people to serve as deacons, pastors or officials. Up until very recently, some were intolerant of mixed race marriages. Whatever they do, it has nothing to do with the civic response.
And here is the bottom line.
There is no political case to made against gay marriage.
It is not an attack on hetero marriage that needs to be defended against. If gay marriage is made legal, I have no intention of divorcing Alison and rushing out to be gay married. I can't change my wiring any more than they can.
It will not bring the downfall of western civilization nor did it bring the collapse of Rome. LGBTs serve this country nobly, with the same vigor and patriotism as anybody else. And if married, they will have the same rate of fidelity and commitment as heteros have (come to think of it, I would hope better). If we don't make their sexuality the central point of contention, they tend to be just like everyone else, and fall all over the religious and political map. LGBTs have liberals and conservatives, atheists and devoted religious followers, football fans and ballet fans. They are just like everyone else. Sex is an important thing, but in no way the only thing.
Marriage is not about procreation. We let seniors way past child bearing marry. We let the barren marry. No one comments on it or worries about it. Because marriage is about love. Marriage is about devotion and caring of another human being. Children need first and foremost to be raised in a loving environment. They need to be raised by people who love them and love each other. I would any day of the week rather have a child raised by a loving gay couple than I would a hetero couple hell bent on destroying each other.
And for those who think this is some of kind of gateway to bigamy or bestiality you're simply not paying attention or are completely deluded. They are no more a gateway than straight marriage is. There is no comparison between the love of two equals and other relationships, particularly those based on unequal power relationships and exploitation.
It's time. It is the great civil rights question of our day. And I for one know which side of it I want to explain to my great-grandkids that I was on.
Marriage equality for all loving couples.
