Ok, so I am happy 53% of Americans felt the same way I did in the presidential race. It's nice to finally vote for a winning president. But as incredibly happy as I am with our soon-to-be President Obama, I am so incredibly disappointed with the passing of Prop. 8. It saddens me when people think it's okay to pass laws limiting the rights of others.
I think the Wiccan religion is a little silly, but I like their rede: "Do what you will, so long as it harms none." I can get behind that. It's how I feel about most things. I guess the issue lies in what "harm" means. I think some people express harm when their worldview is questioned. I look at harm in a physical/wellbeing sense.
If I wanted to outlaw what I felt was morally wrong, there would be no churches, abstinence classes, SUV's, or glittery backgrounds on MySpace. But I respect the right of people to go to church, teach their children abstience instead of safe sex, to drive their SUV (though I will still frown at them) and have nothing on their MySpace except for glittery sparkles shooting from a unicorn horn. Those things don't harm me at all. Not in a real sense. I might get irritated at the amount of gas that's being used, or saddened when a teenage girl gets pregnant because she was too afraid to ask for/use birth control. When I have kids, it might be a pain for me to explain about church and religion, but it's something they need to know about to function in the real world anyway. And I can just avoid MySpace.
But none of those things actually hurt me. How does gay marriage hurt people? By forcing them to admit that other people hold different morality structures? Well, gee. I have to admit that every day when I see a Jesusfish on a car, or a girl wearing a headscarf in class. But, here's the thing. Religion is a choice that is yours to make. BEING GAY IS NOT A CHOICE. Yet why do people have the right to practice religion but not to marry whomever they love?
One of my friends just had surgery on Tuesday. The surgery. And hearing about what she had to go through to finally get the body that she should have been born with was amazing. NO ONE would go through that if they had a choice. It's painful, and hard, and scary, and dangerous. But it was the only way she could ever feel comfortable in her own skin. My mind boggles when I think about the changes she is going through.
Sexuality is not a choice. Being gay, transgendered, straight--it's just how we are born. And Prop 8 was about taking away the right of marriage from someone because of how they were born. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? Remember when blacks and whites couldn't marry because of the color of the skin they were born with?
In closing, an anecdote about my personal hero, Mr. Rogers.
Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.”
2 comments:
Thank you for your post. There is much wisdom in what you say. It is difficult to imagine what is advanced in the name of God, as we know God, or society when we disenfranchise, marginalize, and dehumanize one another because of our disagreements. I am a Presbyterian minister and openly gay. I have served a congregation and teach high school as an openly gay man. Instead of people running from me, I find that there are many who are trying to find their path - seeking the openness and transparency of others to help in charting their own.
Like Proposition 8, we have an amendment in our church constitution that is used to discriminate against LGBT/Q folk. We are doing our best to remove it, but in the meantime we continute to challenge in the spirit of tolerance, understanding, and love, more commonly known as Christianity.
The irony is that the people who are excluded from society, church, or other organizations frequently best know the sting of such pograms and can be of great comfort and support to those dealing with such things in their own lives.
Above all, in whatever God may be, God is surely more than what we know with a capacity for embracing what we too often find as mutually exclusive. Should we err, let us do so on the side of welcoming in radical and generous ways.
Peace,
Ray Bagnuolo
White Plains, NY
I personally find it annoying that people even feel it necessary to prove that being gay (or whatever) is not a choice in order to get rights. It shouldn't matter either way! It's basically buying into the notion that people need an "excuse" to be gay.
It doesn't seem to convince anyone, either, since they just say, "Well, maybe you can't help being gay, but that doesn't mean you have to act on it. You're free to be celibate or at least closeted so we don't have to think about you!" I suppose the fact that it's not a choice makes it even worse when people choose to oppress LGBT folks, but it would be bullshit either way.
(I like Jonathan Tweet's essay on this topic. Actually, I like a lot of his essays.)
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