November 5, 2009
The great state of Maine held the latest referendum on gay marriage and once again it went down in flames. It seems as if this is the case just about every year during election time. In fact, 31 states have voted on the measure and 31 states have shot it down. The big question in the gay community is obvious – why?
Conventionally the gay crowd could write the whole country off as a bunch of Bible thumping shut-in homophobes whose collective goal is to persecute gay people. Unfortunately, that won’t work, because it’s simply not true. We’re in love with the gays in a major way and we don’t mind if the world knows it.
For example, our television is one big box of gayness. Do you watch any of the original programming on HBO? I know I do and I’m a huge fan. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) found that HBO had 10 of it’s 14 original series shows that had gay characters or dealt with gay themes. After reading that I took stock of what I watched, how many gay characters those shows had and how often the topic of homosexuality came up… Yep – I like shows that deal with a lot of gay people and issues and it doesn’t bother me a bit.
As I thought about it more I started to realize that many programs on TV either deal with gay issues or are staffed with gay actors and singers. From talk show hosts to entire shows dedicated to gay men showing straight men how to take care of themselves to entire sitcom episodes dealing with a character coming out, there’s a bunch of gay on the TV. Just look at American Idol. By the time American Idol starts to narrow down its last 10 contestants the biggest story/question is always; “who’s gay and when are they going to admit it?” Somehow this show remains most popular in the south even though they’re assumed to be the most intolerant when it comes to gays.
And let’s not mention our male population’s obsession with everything lesbian… oops, I just did it.
So why can’t Americans who love their gay inundated TV and media vote to give them the right to get married? It seems like we’ve accepted their lifestyle enough to have it displayed in our living room, so what’s the big deal if they “make it official?”
That’s a good question, I’m glad you asked.
It’s not that simple for the average American to redefine what they’ve known of marriage from the time they were children and defining gender roles through play with dolls and action figures. Our society is itself married to an idea about marriage that is born out of religious traditions. That’s where the key lies.
Before we whooped the British and sent them back home to ignore proper personal dental care for eternity, we were governed much more by our faith in God than anything or anyone else. Religion required that those who wanted to fornicate like rabbits without sin needed to join in holy matrimony first. The marriage ceremony predates the American government by at least a decade… or a millennium or three. There are dozens of arguments of exactly why religions were proponents of marriage with my favorite being that there wasn’t anything going on Saturday afternoons in the church and they hadn’t invented college football yet so they decided that they might as well have a party. Plus the church collected a nice fee for hosting the event. I kid, but we’re not really sure that there was one single reason marriage came into popularity, but we do know that it’s always been between a man and a woman and someone isn’t going to like their mother-in-law no matter how far away she lives.
It’s not as if homosexuality is a new thing invented by the singing duo of Wham! during the 1980s either. Certain accounts of ancient Rome make it out to be one big gay bath house inside an Irish pub staffed by adolescent boys. However, men were married to women and sex with the boys was a lot like golf on Saturdays – something he does whether she likes it or not and is followed by a nap when he gets home. Men were not petitioning the Caesar for the right to marry their “golfing buddy” because they knew that their religious faith forbade it and that the government wouldn’t contradict the tenets of their religion.
A few thousand years later we find ourselves in the same position. For some reason our government only waited minutes after the ink dried on the constitution to violate the first amendment that says in part that they would make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The American government started recognizing people as married, which is something they had no business doing seeing as how marriage is a religious principal certified by a religious ceremony presided over by a religious figurehead/official. Under those guidelines the American government should be tracking whose had their first communion or embarked on their Mormon mission, right?
Slowly but surely the American government has crept into the practice of marriage and made it something the government takes great joy in regulating and taxing. For most of us this isn’t much of a problem seeing as how the part of your marriage that involves the government is cheaper and shorter than the religious part of your nuptials. And for those who want to partake in the religious tradition of marriage, but don’t want to be religious, there’s a representative of the government who will gladly marry you down at your local courthouse. After all, the American government has usurped God’s power and claims they will decide who shall marry who shall not.
This is where the problem begins for the gay community. While I understand that in order to get married I had to pay the government for permission, however, I don’t consider the government at all when I define my marriage. You see, I’m married in the “eyes of God.” And no matter where I go, I’m still married in “the eyes of God.” I sat there for one hour in a Catholic church on the hot seat while some guy whose never gotten to second base with a girl told me and the crowd how this all was supposed to go as per God’s instructions. So if the American government lost all it’s paperwork on whose married and whose not; I’m still married because I appealed to a higher authority to get the decision – God… or at least his regional rep in the greater Houston area. My marriage knows no government recognition as far as I’m concerned. My vows were made in the presence of God at one of his many houses and that’s who judges my marriage, not some government bureaucrat.
The average American defines marriage as their faith has taught them, not as the government defines it. You’ve always heard people rattle off their list of hierarchy such as God, country and Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboys. It’s important to realize that many Americans put their faith in God and their religion higher than they do their country and its laws. That’s the problem referendums on gay marriage runs into.
When you ask voters to vote on what they define as marriage, they’re going to answer that question by consulting their bible, not their constitution because they see marriage as a religious ceremony, not a governmental permission.
A better way to frame these referendums is to stop using the word marriage, which describes a religious ritual and start using the words “civil unions.” Ask a bible thumper what their bible says about two people uniting in the eyes of a government for the purposes of a tax break and watch them refer to the constitution for clarification. Make your goal clear to them and they’ll consult the proper resource when making a decision.
It’s a simple matter of making sure that you’re asking people to interpret your wishes using the proper rule book. Don’t make people feel like you want to redefine their beliefs. Make them understand that you want clarification of the rule set forth by the government. Those are to very different things.
When you clarify the argument, you can make headway for your cause. Good luck in your future efforts and may God bless you (that was too much, I’m sorry).
Legal declaration: The following statement from the author of this article absolves him of any and all criticism from those who may have been offended by his thoughts on the gay community’s efforts to achieve an equal status under the laws of the U.S. Government.
Statement from author: I have lots of gay friends.
David Karlsruher will be happy to receive your hate mail at davidkshow@gmail.com.