I’ve written about this topic before, but it’s one that won’t go away until resolved. So here I am once again. You can read the full article here.
Six months ago, Maine had become the nation’s second state to allow same-sex marriages. Now, in a 53-47 vote, the law has been repealed, banning same-sex marriages once again.
Scott Fish of the Stand for Marriage Maine campaign told TIME in an interview that the other side has acted in too much haste, and had too little respect for voters’ wishes. “What’s the hurry [for gay marriage]?” What’s the hurry?!?! This guy’s got some nerve! The gay community has not acted in haste! They simply want the exact same rights as everyone else, and particularly the right to marry. If any other demographic were used in this context, it would be plain as day how unjustified and ridiculous this is. Let’s give this a try.
Women can’t have the right to marry.
Blacks can’t have the right to marry.
People from the ages of 18 to 25 can’t have the right to marry.
The unemployed can’t have the right to marry.
Does that get the idea across? And this argument, replacing other demographics for the one in question for the sake of showing the inconsistency, is a totally logical and coherent one.
And besides, the gay community hasn’t been trying to “hurry” anything at all. They have been fighting for this for decades, if not longer. Here, on TIME, is a photo journal chronicling the fight for gay rights, entitled “Gay Rights, from Stonewall to Prop. 8″.
Gay Rights, from Stonewall to Prop. 8: A visual history of the gay-rights movement
Clearly the fight has been long. And sadly, it will continue as long as the United States upholds its deeply religious roots. I have quoted this excerpt before, but here it is pertinent again. In his book, The End of Faith, Sam Harris shows us the severe imbalance that is currently the stronghold in the country.
“To see that our laws against ‘vice’ have actually nothing to do with keeping people from coming to physical or psychological harm, and everything to do with not angering God, we need only consider that oral and anal sex between consenting adults remains a criminal offense in thirteen states. Four of the states (Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri) prohibit these acts between same-sex couples and, therefore, effectively prohibit homosexuality. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone (these places of equity are Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia). One does not have to be a demographer to grasp that the impulse to prosecute consenting adults for nonprocreative sexual behavior will correlate rather strongly with religious faith”.
But the times, they are a changin’. In a recent proclamation from president elect Barack Obama dated September 8th, 2009, he acknowledged the inclusion of same-sex couples into the category of “families”.
“Whether children are raised by two parents, a single parent, grandparents, a same-sex couple, or a guardian, families encourage us to do our best and enable us to accomplish great things.” [Emphasis added]
In Laramie, Wyoming, college student Matthew Shepard was murdered because of his sexual orientation in 1998. Now, more than ten years later, the Laramie Project, the play about his murder and bringing awareness to these social injustices, has easily become one of the most performed productions over the past decade. The followup production, “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” had a triumphant debut showing in 150 theaters across 14 countries.
In a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children.” Additionally, “among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.”
“Those Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion have seen the greatest growth in numbers as a result of changes in affiliation”.
And this last point from the survey is definitely one to inspire some hope in the coming years.
“People not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions. Among the unaffiliated, 31% are under age 30 and 71% are under age 50. Comparable numbers for the overall adult population are 20% and 59%, respectively.”
In these overly theist times, we can only hope that these trends will continue and that we will see a new dawn in rationale, logic, and reason.
