Sorry. I'm Peeing In The Punchbowl.

Although I am feeling huge and joyful elation over yesterday's election, I just have to take a few moments to say something about the fact that possibly a tenth of our population was told yesterday that, like African-Americans a few generations ago, they do not have the same civil rights as the rest of "us."

And as excited and proud as I am about the fact that Americans got off their asses yesterday and managed to vote for the best candidate who also happened to be of African-decent, I am as equally pissed and sorrowful that we decided to alter the constitutions of several states to prevent many of our citizens from enjoying the same rights as other citizens. What were people thinking when they voted to put it into the constitution of their states that marriage should be defined as being only between a man and a woman? If they'd tried to define marriage as a union between two people of the same race, it would have been an outrage! That would never have made it to the ballots. But defining it as a union between a man and a woman?

Oh sure.

Give me a break.

I find the whole situation vile.

And rather unbelievable.

I thought things in this area were changing. At least in California, for god's sake.

But I suppose when a group like the Mormons (who let's face it- mostly live in Utah) throw their energy and 20 million dollars into a fight, they can get some stuff done.

Some vile stuff.

I mean- the Mormons didn't give up polygamy (officially, anyway) until 1890 when the law of the land not only forbid the practice in no uncertain terms but began to actually prosecute it. And even then, it wasn't a "revelation" but was described as an "official declaration" and one would think that if anyone was interested in protected the rights of adults to marry as they see fit, it would be the Mormons but no. Guess not.

Maybe they're just all pissed off and frustrated because they can't follow their God-given right to the one-man-many-women marriages that God had seen fit to allow them.

I don't know.

Here's what I do know:

Jesus did not talk about homosexuals. He DID talk a lot about loving your neighbor and not judging others and feeding the hungry and giving the shirt off your back to someone who needed it and taking care of the children.

So why don't these tax-exempt churches put their might and money behind changing constitutions to make these things the law- the things that Jesus DID actually discuss and advise his followers to do?

Huh?

Why that would be like, uh, welfare. Or socialism. Or...OH NO! Communism!

I had a discussion with a woman I know on this subject today. She was raised in the pope's church to believe that homosexuality was a sin, but she's now tolerant enough to believe that perhaps it's more of an aberration. But when I asked her why she thinks that homosexual couples should be barred from legal marriage, she hemmed and hawed and said something about the fact that if anyone can get married, then her "legitimate" marriage might mean less. When I pushed her as to how that would work, she didn't really have an answer.

She thought she'd come up with a good argument when she said that if some people were born with the proclivity of being attracted to children, then should we just allow THAT too?
I asked her why she'd even bring that into a conversation about homosexuality but of course the answer is clear- to her homosexuality is still a sin and a perversion.

I didn't point that out but I said, "The difference there is that a child is not a consenting adult."

"Oh yeah," she said.

She's trying to stretch her mind around it all but it's a slow process. I believe though, that by the time our conversation was over, she was farther along in the process than she was before it started.

I'm just angry.

As I've said before, over and over, for me it's all about love and consenting adults. Not consenting adult and child. Not consenting adult and goat.

Just plain old consenting adults.

You want to marry two men? Do they want to marry you? Fine by me if you're all over eighteen.

You want to marry forty-eight women? Do they want to marry you? Go for it if you're old enough to go to war.

None of that is going to affect my marriage.

Did you know the divorce rate for Christians is higher than that of agnostics and atheists?
So perhaps if we want to "preserve the family" and "protect marriage" we should outlaw conservative Christianity.

Just saying.

And I could say so much more on this subject than anyone in the world would want to read but I'll just say it all boils down to this:

Yesterday we not only denied the rights of citizens to marry based on the gender of the people whom they want to marry, we, in some cases, took those rights away.

This fight is not over. And I hope that someday we'll look back on the whole thing with an attitude of what the fuck was THAT all about? the same way we can now look back on the buying and selling of human beings.

Because both of these issues are based on the belief that some segment of humanity does not deserve the rights that others receive. No matter what your religious or moral beliefs, you cannot deny that fact.

Slavery ain't right (even though the Old Testament said it was, and oh yeah, it also said polygamy was okay too) and neither is denying the rights of people in love to be afforded the legal rights and protections of marriage because they're gay.

And that's one of the things I was talking about yesterday when I said we have work to do.

Let's get started.