Give the gays a break

Ugh… the argument of gay anything is getting so tired.  This week, the Supreme Court is hearing two cases (one of them about DOMA) that seems likely to be dropped altogether.  No one has the guts to make a decision on them, or wants a vote to occur, and the fools on the bench can not stop themselves from steering the debate into irrelevant asides.  North Carolina, a state that already banned same sex marriage, threw into their constitution a while back that “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.”  I love this statement, by the way, because the phrasing technically also bans unmarried heteros from living together.  Love it when the mouth breathers start thinkin’.  Didn’t anyone in politics and law creation ever take a Technical Writing class?  This is like the idiotic law in Florida that bans sex with “animals,” completely ignoring that human being are classified in the kingdom “Animalia,” making us all, indeed, animals.  So in Florida, they’ve technically outlawed sex altogether.  Absolutely love it.  And these are two great examples of why gay marriage shouldn't be left to the states.

But back to the gays.  I’m fed up with the notion that allowing gay marriage is somehow “forcing” the morals of a minority onto a majority.  Wrong.  It’s simply allowing that minority to be recognized as citizens of this country who have the right to love whomever they choose.  And let’s not kid ourselves that they are citizens.  They are citizens in name only, while treated by the majority as second-class.  The statement I hear a lot (especially when cameras are around) is, "Gays don't have the right to force their lifestyle on me."  What?  How is anyone forced to do anything?  They don’t invade our houses in the middle of the night to steal our children for their “cult.”  They don’t man the airports like hare krishnas, recruiting a gay army.  They don’t care what you do – just stop caring so much about what they do that you invade their private lives with your ideas, converted into legislation, to dictate their lives to them.  I'm still waiting for that one sob story that regales the gays forcing heteros against their will into a lifestyle they want no part of...

As for the religious roots (and they are all religious) of the argument…  you can quote Leviticus to me all you want, the simple fact of the matter is that Mosaic holy codes were given to the Judaic priests after the Jews left Canaan, to help them assist their flock in adjusting from the conformity to pagan ritualistic living the Jews had adopted to protect themselves from persecution, dating back to their days in Egypt (one of the rituals involved the penetration of young male temple prostitutes).  Heck, the text could even be interpreted to instruct against defiling the sanctity of a woman’s marriage bed.  Context makes a world of difference...   

It could also be argued that Christians live according to the direction and inspiration of Jesus Christ, through the New Testament.  While He affirmed older Mosaic law as valid, Jesus’ only two love commandments in Matthew 22:37-40 implies a way of life that had moved beyond older holy law.  We even affirm that implication ourselves today.  The Mosaic holiness codes have been largely ignored for centuries.  A view examples, excerpted from a great letter to Dr. Laura Schlesinger:

• When I burn a bull on the alter as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
• I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
• I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
• Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchases from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
• I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or can I delegate that out to a third party?
• A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than a man laying with a man as with a woman. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
• Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the alter of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room?
• Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
• My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made by two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev. 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death in a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

This brings up the inevitable question:  Why have Christians generally disregarded these laws as “outdated,” yet kept the only one that allows us to be bigots against something we disagree with?  And by the by, a quick sidebar on the word “abomination”:  The Hebrew text uses the word toevah (translated as “impurity” or “unclean”), not zimah (translated as “injustice” or “sin”), which means anything referred to as an “abomination” in Leviticus is denotatively meant to mean “ritually impure” - not “immoral.”  An important distinction, one might say, yes?  "Abomination" is one of the most often quoted, and recklessly misapplied, terms to paint homosexuality as something even Moses himself wasn't addressing.  Mosaic laws had little to do with morality.  They were almost entirely ceremonial in nature, and meant to engender spiritual purity.  God, when He did regard morality, did so in a very clean and simple manner - they're called the Ten Commandments.  And the fact the He used Moses to present both only emphasizes the distinction between the two - one regards spiritual ceremonial purity, one regards moral living.

Speaking of reckless, people should scrap the farce that gays harm the sanctity of marriage and family.  Heteros divorce at a 50-55% clip all on their own, and adultery rates are the highest ever since statistics of such things began, so it's more than a little disingenuous to have heteros claiming sanctity of anything.  Conventional procreation in the family is out, obviously, but surrogacy and adoption (average of 130,000 waiting to be adopted in a given year – sanctity of family, huh?) easily fill the bill, so that argument really has nowhere to go.  The HIV/AIDS health argument is also weak.  Gays are the most health conscious of any of us in that regard – this isn’t the 70s/80s anymore.

There is simply no real logistical reason to ban gay marriage, other than contextually inaccurate interpretations of religion (and often basic, rudimentary bigotry),  against that which makes some of us uncomfortable.  But you are no more spiritually fulfilled if Joe and Bob down the street can’t get married than you are less spiritually fulfilled if they can.

And the public in general has grown so irrationally unforgiving on the subject that they have turned the Supreme Court into a bunch of cowards who want nothing to do with it, despite the pesky fact that it's their job.  So what say we all put on our big people pants and act like adults, rather than a bunch of whiny, puerile adolescents, hmm?  End of rant.