I was really going to try not to get on the Light Years soapbox... oh well
We live in a country that has made state sanctioned monogamus gay relationships a social issue but apparently doesn't care that millions are uninsured, unemployed, and starving. People fight to tear children from thier gay parents, but do nothing to take guns out of the hands of children.
Gay people are tortured, mutilated, and killed throughout the world to this day. Forty something gay men were brutally killed and tortured by the Egyptian goverment last year... I guess we were too busy talking about Lindsay Lohan or the google eyed runaway bride to notice or care. People are killed because they are gay in this country all the time. People can be fired from thier jobs or have thier denied housing even on suspicion of being gay in many states. Gay teens have the highest rate of suicide, unsurprising when they turn on the TV and see picketers at Matthew Shepard's funeral or the bumbling president talking about amending our most sacred document to disclude "the homosexuals", in an effort to talk about anything but the war or the ecomomy. Scapegoating and demonizing minorities is easy, proven, and time tested. A great way to keep minds off the really important stuff.
For those who say people's sexuality defines thier life, well, then go a day without mentioning (flaunting) your heterosexuality... no mention of the husband or wife or anything pertaining to romantic love or sex. Can't be easy. From what I understand of Gay Pride, it's celebrating the bravery of the first gay rights demonstrations for one, and also as a "we're here." Gay people are neither the disturbed perverts the religious right would like you to believe, nor the campy clowns popular culture is comfortable portaying. They are people with all that entails, with varying cultures, views, and lives. Gay pride is numbers and diversity... gay firefighters, gay pilots, gay Christians, gay Jews, gay bikers, gay supermodels, gay cancer survivors, gay Republicans, gay architects, gay doctors, gay milkmen, whatever... your gay neighbors. It celebrates the fact that so many that are different have one thing in common, and why do you have a problem with it? Of course, the news shows the guy dressed as Liza Minelli kissing the guy wearing nothing but a leather thong and a peacock tail. Nothing newsworthy about homely lesbians pushing stollers or elderly gay veterans. Is "Girls Gone Wild" to be taken as representative or heterosexuals, whites, or women?
I know a male couple with two children. I bet thier "orientation" is a pretty damm big deal with the daily stresses they get regarding healthcare, power of attorney and other things others take for granted. Go tell them you don't agree with thier "lifestyle" or that they are "sinners" rather than the best parents you could find. How many crack babies have you adopted lately and given a wonderful caring home under intense scrutiny, even death threats?
The above posts are pretty telling as to why it's an issue. If people continue to believe that despite what pretty much all of the experts say, homosexuality is somehow chosen, or a "lifestyle" (retirement home living or hippie communes are a lifestyle, not homosexuality... what on earth is the all-inclusive gay lifestyle?) two sides will never meet. One side sees it as a civil rights issue, while the other side claims a religious, cultural issue, stopping something sinful and dangerous. It's pretty telling that an above poster compared people who are gay to liars and adulterers. By the way, isn't adultery a huge sin, but we practically celebrate it and make light of it- all the while denying commited relsationships the rights and tax breaks others enjoy. We'll likely never know for sure, but most credible science points to it being a genetic trait.
Alcoholism, drug use, promiscuity, infidelity, irresponsibility, and disease are all social ills heterosexuals face as well as homosexuals. It could be argued though, that a particular opressed group can be driven to poor lifestyle choices when not respected by the majority. Activist groups have demonized gay people much as blacks and native Americans have been or are. This is where the silly lifestyle idea comes from.
What can we expect? Let's allow these families to be legal if we truly believe in love and marriage as a cornerstone to our society. If we care so much about marriage, family, fidelity, and love as we profess to, why are we purposely setting out to exclude people? What are we doing about the 50% failure rate of heterosexual marriages? The millions of broken homes, abandoned and abused children? Not much. Certainly not talking of amending the Constitution.
Hatred is a powerful thing. When the Nazi party began compiling information on Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals etc it didn't seem like a big deal, and next thing you know 12 million people had been exterminated. Single a group out, enshrine "not quite equal" in law and you are forever advocating treating people as at best second class citizens, at worst, sub-human. That's not my America. Is it somehow different when it's not your friends and family? I'll never understand it.
And we all know the oft-understood Bible has been bastardized throughout history to defend everything from slaughter to slavery. And I'm still waiting for the national campaign against Red Lobster, who serves the abomination that is shellfish, the NFL which uses the sacred skin of a dead pig, and women being mandated to inform all of thier "unclean" time of the month, and other such Jems from Leviticus... I guess one can be as selective with those passages as one can be with the Ten Commandments (kill is pretty clear to me, as is lie).
It sure seems that the issue of whether gay people should be equal or not is brought up alot in unrelated topics. I sure hope my children don't ever have to hear people defend hatred, and especially not have it hidden behind God. Explaining Uncle Chad and Uncle Brian would be much easier than explaining people who say they honor God but work to destroy lives and abloish different forms of love.
