Thursday, November 5, 2009

I am voting on your rights



I read where Pastor Rick Warren, personable preacher of the mega Saddleback church in California, and who spoke at President Obama's innauguration, is not going to say anything in opposition to Uganda making it a crime punishable by death to be born gay.

A true Christian, in the least true sense of the word.  Not at all a Christian, I mean, or a man of any moral backbone.  Because if they would make it a death penalty offense to have blue eyes, he would probably be very upset.  He himself or one of his family might have blue eyes.  Or if it were a death-penalty offense to be born left-handed...it could happen to anyone, to any family.  But to  be born gay?   No, that would be just criminal.  Those gays.  They are just the same as people who sleep with corpses, they say, or with dogs.  Or their inlaws. 

Just let the innate difference involve one's sexuality and all bets are off. 

I have followed the news lately about the voting on rescinding people's marriage rights -- not granting them new ones, taking away those that were already granted.  It makes the people who do it feel very moral.  They have saved the family.  Preserved the family, one woman said, and I'm assuming she means she has safely stored one away in a Mason jar with the lid on and and plenty of vinegar.   What families are these people talking about?

Mine is not included in that pickling bath, because she has just voted away my rights to have one at all.  So how, exactly, is she saving it?  What exactly is she saving?

Lady, if you can vote away my rights to have a legal, committed partnership with the person I love, to build a future together, to build a family, to share a roof and pay taxes together and get a say in how she is treated when she is ill, or what happens to me when I die, then I can do the same for you.  Fair enough?  I say if you have been divorced, you can't marry again.  Your second marriage is null and void.  And your third and fourth, as well.  I can do that to you if you do this to me.  This will mean one of my own children will not have been legally married to either of the mothers of his children due to a previous ill-thought-out engagement. Well, too bad for them.  And all those joint tax returns?  Look out, honey, the IRS is gunning for you. 

"How does it feeeeel," sang Bob Dylan so long ago.... "How does it feeeeel, to be on your own, no direction home, just like a rolling stone..." 

And you -- the couple over there with no offspring?  So sorry,  but you're no longer married.  I don't care if it's a physical problem or you're saving the planet or you both carry the Tay Sachs gene -- you're single again.  Marriage, according to some who claim authority on the subject, is only for people who procreate.  So you're out.  And by the way, you'll have to stay celibate now.  None of that out of wedlock hanky-panky allowed.  It's only for the marrieds. 

What?  It's not legal for unrelated adults to share a house in your town or village?  Oh, so sorry.  Life is just like that sometimes. 

I voted on your rights and now you don't have any.

How does it feel? 

Shall I tell you? 

photo credit: Flickr

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