Clearly, gay marriage is the hot topic right now. Suffice it to say that I think of marriage as a religious ceremony and I think the government needs to stay out of it – separation of church and state and all. However, now we are in this mess and the government has once again found themselves stuck between a rock and hard place, trying to mandate morality.
Here is my take: Were I in the position to vote on Prop 8, I would vote yes. However, I will spare you all the social con speech and preaching. Here’s my take from an equal rights stance: The effects of defeating Prop 8 are too great. The slippery slope argument gets so overused that I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I think it holds. After all, the core of the gay marriage argument is equality. How can we POSSIBLY be so discriminatory? What about the bisexual who wants to marry their female and male partners? Who are we to judge? And the girl that grows up and falls in love with her brother – why can’t they marry? Who are we to vote on love, right?
Beyond that, the backlash would be a huge infringement on the rights of, say, the other 95% of the population. Case in point: the pastors and rabbis that will perform the weddings. How long before churches and religious leaders get attacked and abused and sued for refusing to perform weddings that they will not support? The entire religious community is, at large, put in a horrible position. Do they fold, like eHarmony? No, the stakes are much, MUCH greater for someone who is a Christ follower, and is pastoring others. Eternity is involved.
And what about the rights of the states that have banned gay marriage? The majority of the people spoke, and by forcing states that have applied the ban to honor that marriage, you are infringing on their rights. They chose, as a group, to support traditional marriage.
Let me be clear: I am not denouncing civil unions. I support them. And there are no calls to impose bans on cohabitation and other aspects of the relationship. Freedom is still freedom, and God allows us to make our own choices, and their sin is no greater than my own. That said, allowing marriage in the gay community would be disastrous for equal rights, and our country as a whole.
