Yesterday the U.S.’s current leader, President Barack Obama, appears to have uttered support for gay marriage in what looks to be a hastily arranged interview with Robin Roberts that will air soon on ABC. A video excerpt was released. I gather that this was in response to Joe Biden speaking out about something, in his way that he does, that the campaign might not have been ready to tackle. However, what’s done is done. The Obama campaign looked at this, gauged the timing, and responded politically and with conviction through Obama himself. I, for one, am happy that his views have evolved from only supporting traditional marriage and maybe civil unions in 2008 to full-fledged support of marriage equality.
Why do I support marriage equality? Because marriage is unfair as legal marriage currently stands. Personally, I feel that all marriages should be invalidated and replaced with civil unions, which is all that marriage is as far as the law is concerned. If you want to have a religious ceremony to take vows before your (G)od and call it a marriage, so be it. Legally, though, all you have is a civil union. There are hundreds of federal rights that are granted to heterosexual couples that are not granted to same-sex couples. I do not care about preserving the “sanctity” of marriage from a legal standpoint because the “sanctity” of marriage has been ruined since the dawn of time.
Adam took Eve as his wife and it’s for one man and one woman in order to hopefully produce offspring in an environment that is conducive for producing a strong family. However, by Genesis 4, Lamech (Cain’s descendant) broke with the way that marriage was established and took two wives. Later on marriage was again changed to adapt to the customs of the surrounding lands at the time when Abraham took Hagar and had a child, Ishmael, by her. That wasn’t really Biblical, but was a custom at the time in that land. Even later Jacob took two wives (Leah and Rachel) and had two concubines which all resulted in him having 13 children. King David had multiple wives. King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and that was mostly to keep the peace between nations. Thus, marriage had already gone through so many changes and applications that went well beyond anything involving one man and one woman.
Laws were made that were attached to marriage to grant inheritance rights, dowries, land, property, nations, children, slaves, etc., and all of that has absolutely nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage. No, you cannot tell me it’s just an added “benefit” of being married. That’s a man-made attachment to something that really shouldn’t come with any attachments aside from love and commitment. Government is too involved in marriage as it stands today. We operate within this construct. To deny those laws to gay couples is just as wrong as it is to deny heterosexual straight couples the right to marry. If marriage were nothing more than a commitment, I don’t think gays would have any legs to stand on in this argument. Legal marriage, however, is much more than just a commitment and that right should extend to same-sex couples.
Now, Obama has come out in support of gay marriage. Here are my responses to some of the comments I’ve seen about it:
1. “It’s a political move trying to pander for votes!” – Of course it’s political! He’s a politician, right? He couldn’t have gotten very far without some political maneuvering. Yeah, the timing is political and he’s politicking all the way with it, but I think he honestly had a change of heart. Otherwise, I don’t think he would have done it.
2. “He should have spoken up before North Carolina took their vote on Amendment 1!” – There was such a wide margin when Amendment 1 passed that I don’t think him saying anything to galvanize the Democratic base in North Carolina would have been enough to overturn that amendment. Sure, he could have said something, but again – politicking. Timing is so crucial. He only won by like 1 vote in 2008, so I don’t think much could have helped here. Sorry.
3. “Well, he lost my vote. Supporting gays? How could he do that and claim to be a Christian?!” – Sit your bigoted, narrow-minded butt down somewhere and listen to me. First, his personal opinion that gays should be allowed to get married did not come with any legislation promising to make that a reality, unlike Bush and Romney who campaign(ed) on a Federal Marriage Amendment to write discrimination into the Constitution basing it on fears of those icky, disgusting gay people who have butt sex with all that dookie.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You think about the sex that two men must have with each other, without realizing two things – 1) being gay is much, much bigger than something as easy and simple as sex and 2) a lot of gays aren’t even having sex. Stop believing everything you see on television. The gay life isn’t often as glamorous, ostentatious, and loud as you’d think. Drag queens get paid to do that – or they should be getting paid to do that. If not, they’re doing it wrong. Most gays live quite normally…and boringly.
You’re honestly telling me that because of this one thing he’s done, again, with nothing to back it up but an opinion, that’s enough for you to not vote for him? Really? One thing on which you disagree with him is enough for you to not vote for him? How much stuff do you do that people don’t agree with but they still support and love you?
4. “The floodgates of hell have just opened! Our time is limited, America!” – Black Christians – y’all are disgusting me all up and through my life right now. How dare you stand there and say that gays shouldn’t be allowed to get married? Do you not know that some of you who marry interracially weren’t allowed to do so not that long ago? Do you not know that there were many in the South (and North and West) who were okay (and are okay) with you not marrying anyone of a different race? Should we go back to those days? Some of you would be okay with it, I’m sure. Yup, that makes you racist.
How can Black people, of all people, who I know to love and care the most out of all races of people, be so hypocritical of whom you show love to now? In my family there have been child molesters (rumored and confirmed, but now dead) who are still welcomed with open arms but the kids are told to never be around them alone. But gay people are “disgusting” enough that you would vote to take away their rights to preserve an institution that is threatened more by divorce than Steve and Greg wanting to get married? Where is your fervor for anti-divorce laws? Oh, right. Too many of y’all are getting divorced to actually do that.
Finally, Christians, can you stop acting like man’s implementation of Biblical law would actually work in our country? It won’t. It would be equivalent to having Sharia law (Muslim absolutist laws) in our country, because whose interpretation of Biblical law would be correct? As history has proven, any theocracy run by anyone but God himself is an ultimate failure. Also, you can tell gays they can’t get married when you stop drinking to get drunk, stop gambling away your bills money, stop overeating, stop lusting after your coworker, stop enjoying pornography, stop gossiping, stop backbiting, stop talking about others, stop lying, stop cheating, and basically stop posturing like you follow the teachings of Jesus and the Bible to a T.
5. “Obama’s comments are calloused and offensive.” – Ladies and Ladies of the Log Cabin Republicans, have a seat! (See, I can be offensive, too!) I don’t even know where to begin with this. For those who don’t know, the Log Cabin Republicans are the self-appointed gay rights’ group within the Republican Party. Except for getting 8 Republican Senators to join most Democratic Senators in overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and helping prod a few Republican State Senators in New York to approve gay marriage, I really don’t know how they consider themselves doing any good by not complimenting Obama on taking this stand.
Look, a sitting president (and the only President who has done more for gays than any previous President – including the much lauded and gay-loved Bill Clinton) just gave a personal opinion in favor of marriage equality. That is on the path to what should be one of the major goals of the Log Cabin Republicans, however their blind hatred of Obama is shielding them from celebrating only because they couldn’t get a Presidential candidate to do it first. Saying that this election is about the economy, jobs, foreign policy (which Obama is rocking, by the way, so have a seat on that, too), and health care (which they want to deny to all, apparently), rings a bit hollow when he took a major political gamble and did not care to win their support for it.
Are they offended that Obama didn’t come to them first? I really don’t understand how what he said is calloused and offensive. They even brought up North Carolina as something he could have spoken out on, but I did not see any effort on your end in the state to educate your fellow Republican voters to vote against Amendment 1, so the Log Cabin Republicans can have all the seats in the auditorium on that one, too. They support Romney who has vowed to get a marriage amendment passed that would invalidate all gay marriages and make it so that no gay person could ever get married (or partake in a civil union). That’s really not a great example of being a “small government” Republican because government would be involved in marriage way more than they are now.
They’re as bad as closeted gay people who hate themselves after looking at someone of the same sex and complimenting how nice their butt looks in those jeans.
In closing, one man, albeit a very important and powerful man, has an opinion on a divisive issue and that has exposed the nasty underbelly of some people. He’s just a man with an opinion. Sure, it can be changed into laws; however, it didn’t come with law proposals. I encourage you to stop the vitriol, hatred, and other things you’re doing in the name of “love”. I don’t want your type of love. Your type of love is abusive and dangerous to me. You don’t know how to love. Yes, there is room for truth in this, but for all the Christians who are doubling down on this kind of “love” in order to protect something you may not even fully understand or even respect if you’re in one (a marriage), how does your stance help to show the love of Jesus to any gay person? That’s just like saying back in 1964, if the Civil Rights Amendment was put up to a public vote, that you know people who claim to love you but could not go along with you having equal rights. How would you feel about that person and anything they had to tell you about how much Jesus loves you?
If I didn’t know that Jesus is more to me than many of his so-called representatives can ever hope to show, I’d tell you to shove it until it comes out of the back of your throat.
