Marriage is between one man and one woman. That’s the way
it was in the Bible starting with Adam and Eve and the way it has always been. Same sex marriage is an abomination according
to all of society and the Bible. It threatens traditional marriage and negates
the ultimate purpose of marriage… to produce children. And so the arguments go.
Traditional marriage is the way it has always been and meant to be.
The problem is that things change. Things evolve. If they
did not, slavery would still be legal. Women and African Americans would not
have the right to vote and interracial marriage would still be illegal in
southern states. One’s sexual orientation would have to be hidden and
suppressed at the risk of being a social and religious outcast, labeled a deviant,
denied employment, jailed and even beaten to death. But things change and each social
change has been hard fought and won in our country’s history.
Now the issue of same sex marriage comes before the
United States Supreme Court. The same old, tired arguments have been cited once
more. Many of them, I have to imagine, were used to keep interracial marriage illegal.
One pervasive argument centers on the ability of same sex couples to have and
raise children. Well, they say, the ultimate purpose of marriage is to produce
children and raise them in a “normal” family with a mother and father, not two
mommies or two daddies. It would confuse
the sexual identities of the children. It might make them gay! If the purpose
of marriage is to have and raise children, then what should we do with heterosexual
couples who get married and are too old to have children, don’t want to have
children or can’t have children? Should we annul those marriages? Today, same
sex couples have options, if they wish to raise children. In vitro fertilization,
surrogate mothers and adoption have negated that argument. I think it is fair
to say that children raised by same sex parents are no more likely to become
gay than traditional families.
The heart of the issue is that same sex marriages are not
treated equally in all American states or by our federal government. We live in
a country where our Constitution allows individual states to determine the
legality of marriage. In states where same sex marriage is legal, they still have
no standing on the federal level because of DOMA, The Defense of Marriage Act, which
defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Because of this
discrimination, same sex couples often lose out when it comes to inheritance, social
security, property rights, tax advantages, and medical decisions to name a few.
Same sex couples are being left hanging in a legal limbo, unless the Supreme
Court resolves the issue.
Old ways of seeing and accepting things have changed so
much in my own lifetime. I can remember
eating a black licorice candy shaped like little babies called “nigger babies”
when I was a child. On TV, I watched black men, women and children being
knocked down with water cannons and fire hoses and attacked by police dogs.
They were marching down American streets in the south calling for equal rights.
There was a time when only white faces were seen on television and in the
movies. American sports teams were segregated. There were “Jim Crow Cars” and
separate drinking fountains at train stations. Blacks were told to sit in the
back of the bus. Gays were called “queers,” beaten and ridiculed. I have seen
so much amazing change in my lifetime that I have to believe in human
evolution. I can’t believe that loving, committed relationships don’t count for
anything, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only applies to some
Americans and not others.
It is time to accept and move on America.
Food for THOUGHT…
