Thursday, October 6, 2011

Why I Signed a Petition Supporting Gay Marriage

Why did I sign a petition in support of gay marriage?  The easy answer is because there is no reason that my mind can conjure up that would make doing otherwise consistent with rational thought.  There are those that would argue that gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage, but I ask, how will it do so?   I don’t feel like I’m going to wake up the day after gay marriage is made legal and look at my wife and think, “This whole marriage thing is a joke.  If gay people can do it, why bother.”  Others argue that marriage solely exists for the production of children.  Now, if this is truly the case, then we need to start passing laws to incriminate anyone that gets married but doesn’t have a child.  And anyone that physically cannot produce children should be banned from marriage as well.  Of course, I’m assuming that we strive for consistency in how we treat people.
Many who offer arguments against gay marriage attempt to refer back to the bible.  The bible says marriage is something that occurs between a man and a woman.  While I have no intentions of defaming the bible, it may have one or two mistakes included in its pages.  We are all aware that it claims the Sun revolves around the Earth.  Again, I’m not attacking religion. I’m just saying God may have been dictating to the wrong scribes.  Possibly, God saw Paul smiling while writing the Book of Romans.  And since God wanted him to take things more seriously he said, “Stop being so gay Paul!”  Paul, mistaking God’s use of the word gay, wrote a diatribe against homosexuality. 
Others argue that homosexuality is unnatural.  If being gay is not something that happens naturally, I must not understand the definition of naturally.  Am I truly to believe millions of people choose to complicate their lives by desiring something that society has such issues with?  I’d believe that if a handful of people claimed to be gay.  But I don’t think millions of people repress there hetero desires simply to be different or support some ‘unnatural’ counterculture.  No, I’m quite confident that being gay is simply the way one is born (stop singing Lady Gaga in your head and focus).  This is not to say that one could not find examples where someone was gay for unnatural reasons.  But the racist that says he has a black friend is no less racist for having a counterexample.  I’m simply saying most swans are white.  A green swan would not prove me wrong when using the word most. 
The only argument that gets any traction in my mind is that the presence of both a mother and a father has a positive impact on children.  But again, this argument crumbles when we consider the realities of the world.  How many children have two loving parents who are ‘present’ in their lives?  I’m not talking about the dad they see on weekends while they play Wii together.  Or the mom who asks them which outfit looks better before she goes out partying, leaving the kids with grandma or a sitter every night.  I’m talking about a father or mother that actually talks to his or her kids and is emotionally available to his or her children.  This is not even considering how many children simply have single moms (or dads) raising them independently.  And I would argue having positive male role models around these children in their daily lives (whether at church, school, or in the neighborhood) is probably better than what many kids with fathers in the house get in terms of positive role-models.  I think it would be safe to say that having loving and positive role-models around children would largely compensate for the lack of either a father or mother in the child’s life. 
Basically, it all boils down to the fact that if Dick Cheney is cool with it, then so am I!

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