Yep, it's time for another rant.
I have a friend. (Good for you! I hear the more sarcastic among you cry). And my friend and I have agreed that if, in ... I think it was twenty or so years... if neither of us have found someone and settled down by that point, or if the someone we found turned out to be a total pain in the ass and we up and left them a long time ago, we would get married. Why? Because we're good friends, dammit, and we kinda like each other, and hey, why not?
A-ha! Says George Bush. Actually I have so little respect for the man that it wouldn't surprise me if he actually did say 'a-ha' A-ha, he says, I know why not! Because it's against the law.
Oh, says we. But ... but it can't be against the law! The law barrs discrimination against everything else based on gender and sexual orientation. Why should marriage be any different?
Um. Because.
Bzzt! Sorry, wrong answer, but thanks for playing.
I'm serious. Everything else has this little anti-discriminatory clause. Cannot discriminate based on race, gender, age, height, weight, eye color, sexual orientation, or favorite food group. They stopped enforcing the sodomy laws years ago and I think they've actually started (slowly but surely) striking them off the books. Why? Because the government on at least a statewide level decided that they couldn't enforce what went on behind closed doors and drawn curtains. They finally decided, bless them, that it was none of their business who a person slept with as long as both parties involved were consenting adults capable of making that decision.
Go them.
But, then, along comes the Sanctity of Marriage act or the Protection of Marriage act or whatever the hell it's being called this week. Because the government really does on some strange level I haven't figured out yet want to regulate who we sleep with. Or at least it damn well seems that way. A-ha, says Bush, we can't enforce these anti-sodomy laws so we'll make it really really really really really fucking hard for all you scary perverted same-sex couples out there to deal with the legal ramifications of living together. That'll show you. If you won't straighten up, fly right, and marry someone of the opposite sex like a good goddamn Christian then you'll just have to suffer, won't you?
Actually, that probably a misnomer. Granted, Bush's fear, hatred, loathing, trepidation, what the hell ever it is that's possessed his mind, has probably sprung from his deep-seated Christian values. Which, hey. By all means. Have your deep-seated values, be they Christian, Wiccan, Jewish, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Scientologist, Buddhist, Zen, Shinto, or Discordian. But for the love of all that is right and good and fair in this world KEEP THEM OUT OF YOUR POLITICS! Separation of church and state? Equal rights? Ring a bell?
Whether you like it or not, Mr. George Dubya Bush, same-sex couples are here to stay. They were in existance a hell of a long time before you were born, and they will be in existance a hell of a long time after you die. Whether you like it or not, same-sex couples are also comprised of human beings who think and feel and live and breathe and bleed and die just like you do. And they are being deprived of their Constitution given rights by YOU. I'm really rather amazed that this doesn't stick in your craw.
It sucks, you know? It sucks royally, and it's something that same-sex couples have to live with every goddamn day of their lives in this country. They're being treated as second-class citizens, told that no matter how many times they pledge their commitment to each other (and with this country's rate of divorce we need all the committed couples we can get!) it still won't matter in the eyes of the law. It's a sham, it's a horror, and it's absolutely hideously appalingly cruel. What the hell does it matter what sex they are? What their gender is? Two people! Love each other! Making committments! That's a hell of a lot more than a lot of Americans can do, when you can find a divorce lawyer on every street corner yet not necessarily a chicken in every pot. Why, oh why, oh why are you so selectively blind about your own damn laws? Constitutional rights! Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness! Read the goddamn memo!
It's not even a philosophical or a moral matter, really. Well, it is for me, but that's beside the point when it comes to the stupid marriage act. You can debate the morality of same-sex marriages within your own religious framework from now till your Judgement Day, and I still won't give a damn because you know what? It's your religion. I'll debate it within my religion, you debate it within yours, we'll smile and nod to each other on the street, and no one has to get hurt. But keep your religious values the hell away from my civil rights! Keep your church out of my state, and we'll get along just fine. And that's what this is alll about, really, isn't it? It's all about the fact that you seem to be trying to get this idiotic nation back on some sort of Christian (or worse, Puritan) track, when far fewer people in the country really care what religion you are as long as you get the same rights as Joe or Muhammed or Tanaka down the lane does.
Hell, that's one of the things I love about this country. I can go to the store and buy the same loaf of bread as any other person, regardless of ... well, of whatever, and it still costs a buck eighty nine. Or whatever it costs. Depends on what kind of bread I buy, I guess.
And you still don't get it, do you? You just don't get that this is an equal country, goddammit, and people deserve equal rights. No matter how much you may hate it or fear it or think it's sick and wrong and disgusting, your people are entitled to equal rights. You have a responsibility to uphold their rights. And you are FAILING. Miserably.
You make me sick, George W. Bush. I hope you lose the next election.
Look! Boylove! *points to icon*
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