Atheists are Fine, but No Gays Invited to the Marriage Party
In California where I live there are numerous Christians who have, in light of the recent Proposition 8 controversy, felt the need to “fight the good fight and defend marriage.”
Desegregate Marriage
I asked one of these crusaders to explain why marriage is only acceptable for a man and a woman. They responded by saying that the Bible states that only a man and a woman can be married and that domestic partnership is the correct way to define gay marriage. But then it occurred to me: A legal partnership between a male atheist and a female atheist is still considered a marriage. The individual agreed with me without pause. I was blown away.
It has been established by others that there are religious gays who do not agree with parts of scripture, but follow its other decrees. To forbid them something that even supposed heretics can enjoy is perposterous and a great insult. Marriage has transformed from a religious institution to a secular and legal institution. There are certain activities that only a marriage can justify such as visitation rights. Some Prop 8 supporters say that in order to fix these issues all that needs to be done is change the wording in the regulations to allow members of domestic partnerships the same privileges. The simpler solution would be to allow anyone to marry. The social status of being married should be available to everyone regardless of race, sexual preference, or theology.
Nov 29th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Excellent post. I find it ridiculous how the only actual argument against gay marriage is just because it is easy to just to keep things as discriminatory as they always were, and then they just pile on their thinly veiled hatred by comparing gay marriage to legalizing some form of criminal activity, or just pile on counterfactual arguments like the one who dissected above. Marriage was a religious institution, and part of it still is. Yet no given religion dictates it collectively any more, even if the chapel where you decide to do any ceremonies for it still calls the shots. But secular, state-recognized, non-ceremonial marriages still exist, still live on, and for them to pretend otherwise is either indicative of profound idiocy or dishonesty. I’m banking on both.
Dec 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Isn’t it crazy how that idiocy and dishonesty can still prevail in these times. It blows me away…even though America has a trend of an increasing liberal zeitgeist we are lagging behind other countries in the simple act of giving people natural born rights that they supposedly have in the Constitution.