It's Like America's on a Treadmill - We've Gone So Far, Yet Stayed in the Same Place

Okay, this has begun to bug me more and more as we get closer to Election Day (and as more and more people take a stance on Facebook), but I think I finally have to say something to clear it out of my system so I can focus on other things.

The issue we have for this rant is Prop 8 in California and Prop 102 in Arizona. Both seek to define marriage as strictly being between a man and a woman, aka no homo marriage. These props are pissing me off, but it’s not even because I think we should let anyone who actually wants to get married to do so, or even that I am so appalled by such conservative thinking. While all of those things do anger me, at this point it is just the stupidity of the semantics of the whole thing, and the fact that as a society we are still at this point that is causing my rage.

Conservative and “traditional” thought is what it is, but the stance of Democrats like Barack really kills me. “I believe in civil unions, but not in marriage.” What the fuck is that? Seriously on the governmental level, what’s the difference? Let’s set aside religious ceremonies as the government should not be involved in that and could not legislate what different religious groups need to allow anyway. My friend Jenni wants to be married to her future husband by a justice of the peace, with no religious aspects, a strictly civil ceremony. Would people say she is any less married? More importantly, it is interesting that in the eyes of the law even if you have a religious ceremony, you are actually not legally married until you and your witnesses sign the civil document.

It is sad that the world has come so far, but is still so afraid. When people like Barack and Joe say, “I believe in civil unions for gay couples, and not marriage,” they are really saying, “I believe in gay marriage, but I can’t say that for fear of backlash from the ridiculous undercurrent of religion and ignorance that flows through this puritanical country, so if I say I just believe in civil unions, I can also still say I don’t believe in gay marriage, even though they are pretty much the same thing. Thank God the Americans that would be involved in the backlash are also mostly too stupid to know I am saying the same thing.” Seriously, give me a break. It also shows that for all of those people that support different lifestyles, the majority of America does not, hence the political suicide.

As someone that is apart of a minority group, it kills me when I still see modern day prejudice that is deemed okay by a large portion of society. Haven’t we learned that all of that generally goes away over time, and we look back in horror at how simple-minded we were? We do the same thing to people who are overweight. Seriously if someone is not harming someone, we should probably leave them alone. Instead we chant about the destroying of the sanctity of marriage (yet you still go to Vegas), express shock about how early in primetime they are showing a dude on dude lip lock (yet cheer on the skanks making out at the bar), and use the word gay as a pejorative to describe something in meetings at work (I witnessed this one twice). Now if someone thought that an interracial couple marrying was destroying the sanctity of marriage, or worse, the Aryan race, that a kiss between that couple before 9pm on network television was unseemly, and said that a bad decision from a client was totally niggerish, that person would be looked at by most of society very differently.

The worst part is that people are wasting time and money on both sides campaigning for and against these propositions. How about we let anyone who dares to make a lifetime commitment to one another do so, and we can use the campaign money to fund a social program, perform cancer research, or feed starving children in a conflict torn area of Africa. Anything else that instead of consisting of judging and limiting people, builds them up and expands possibilities. Honestly, I can’t believe I have to even writing something like this. When we are “okay with the gays” what will be the next thing that we will move on to despise. I am constantly surprised by humanity’s lack of ability to love, and infinite ability to hate.