H.
Kent Craig
This
whole debate about so-called “gay marriage” just tickles the life out of me. Why?
Because those opposed to the concept of a legal union between two partners of
the same gender on the basis that would be one of the end-times-signs that the
end of civilization is coming soon are so just plain wrong as to sound silly
even to themselves when they hear themselves speak such nonsense, and those
that are promoting gay marriage on the basis that they should have the same
rights as an opposite-gendered couple are, unfortunately, wrong also but not
for the reasons they think I might harbor, since I support, not oppose, gay
marriage.
The concept of “marriage” as an institution is so rooted in
our Judeo-Christian heritage with all its millennia of trappings that to try to
pry the wedding cake from the cold fingers of the institution and eat it with a
new face isn’t going to happen. Even when gay marriages become totally legal
and recognized, they will never be equal in society’s eyes to those of a
male/female couple.
Why? Because male/female marriages, from a strictly legal
point of view, are all about creating lineal traceability of descendants and
property, not much more, not much less. Since gay couples can’t combine their
DNA and produce a genetically-shared offspring, not yet with current medical
and scientific technology at least, most people even those who support the
concept of legal unions for gay people will never not in the privacy of their
innermost personal thoughts even consider a gay marriage to be the moral
equivalent to a gay one.
Does that concern those gay people who want to get legally
married, or should it? I certainly hope not! A legal marriage will ensure the
traceability of community property and the legal right to treat their spouse as
their voluntary community property as well on such matters as living wills and
other medical and legal quagmires. A legal gay marriage will become what is for
straight marriages too, a public expression not just of long-term affection but
also of interpersonal commitment. Any institution in which two or more people
contract to behave as responsible, thoughtful, law-abiding, mortgage-paying,
tax-paying, community-involved citizens can only be a good thing, never a bad
thing.
As is with all major change in any society, this revolution
that is driving the legalization of gay marriage in America is another example
of the proverbial kicking in of the rotten door. Most people in America truly
don’t care if their neighbor is gay or if their neighbor is gay that said
neighbor may or may not have a union legally recognized or not with whomever they
happen to also share their home with. What most Americans do care about is that
their neighbor isn’t a nuisance, that they are nice, that have normal lives
much like themselves. Right-wing fear-based mongering aside, most Americans
truly don’t care about whom someone else sleeps with or doesn’t.
What the gay community needs to understand and accept,
though, and learn when to shut up about it is that most Americans while
supporting the reality of gay marriage, will never accept any same-sex union as
being truly equal as on opposite-sex one. This is because of human nature being
the way it is, folks, and if you have a problem with your neighbor supporting
your right to unite but not inviting you over to their next Tupperware party,
then the problem is then with you, not them.
In the end, it’s all about love, God’s love for mankind,
mankind’s love for God, our need to love and be loved by others, to be in love
with someone special and have someone special in our lives be in love with us,
and God truly doesn’t care whom you love, only that you love, that and it’s also about finding
out why the call the progressive income tax system we’re under the
anti-progressive income tax system since GDINK’s (Gay Double Income No Kids
couples) will soon be hit with the same unfair “marriage penalty” that we
straights have had to put up with ever since the current tax system was adopted
in 1903, among many other constraints and unfairnesses that society burdens all
legally-bound couples with, gay or straight. Good luck is all I can say,
ladies, gentlemen!