Tag Archives: homosexuality

I’m Gonna Need Some’a Y’All to Shut Up

Opponents of same-sex marriage have some arguments they like to fall back on a lot. Never mind that most of them fall into wet, sloppy shreds if you apply even the smallest amount of critical thinking.

marriage-equality-symbolThere’s the famous “slippery slope” theory that tells us gay marriage will lead to legalized pedophilia and bestiality and incestuous marriage between first-order relatives. Of course, because same-sex relationships and marriage are between consenting adults, there is no correlation to pedophilia and bestiality. And also, on the topic of animals, same-sex intimacy is actually pretty common in various species, and rarely do they fuck up fellow members of their species for indulging in such acts. As for legalized incest or incestuous marriage, it also isn’t anywhere near the same thing, as some kind of coercion or control is often in play, making the whole consent thing questionable from the get-go. Also, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any cultures through the ages that smile when incest takes place. It is typically taboo.

Speaking of history, there’s the argument that historically, there is no precedent for same-sex marriage. Hell, I used that one myself in younger years, even though I knew damned well that in various cultures, ancient Greece being the most well-known, there is much history of homosexual liaisons and full-fledged open relationships being not just condoned but often encouraged. Also, I’ve become aware of the fact recently that in the early Christian church, there are documented cases of same-sex marriage ceremonies taking place.

But, when all else fails, there’s the trump card, right? Same-sex marriage shouldn’t exist because marriage exists for the purpose of raising kids.

Now, this is the point where many people, even those who aren’t sure about letting men marry men and women marry women, might point out that many people get married with no intention of having children and many infertile people get married, and same-sex opponents have no problem with that.

That, of course, is because the people spouting that theory of marriage-is-all-about-spawning will tell you that people can change their minds about having kids and infertile people sometimes (though with vanishingly slim odds and a frequency that comes close to “never”) do end up conceiving.

But you know what, even though I think the argument of marriage being only about raising biological kids is stupid, I’m prepared to let the same-sex marriage opponents have it…and back them up on their refusal to allow same-sex marriage…if they make some fundamental(ist) and necessary changes to marriage laws nationwide.

Here’s what has to happen:

  • If you are married but have no children, you cannot get the tax benefits for being married.
  • If you are married but have no children, and your spouse dies without a will in place, the inheritance will go to blood relatives. If none exist, the state gets it all.
  • If you are married but have no children, you will have to go through a much more complex and difficult process to adopt than those with children do, because marriage is for the purpose of actually having kids and you haven’t proven yourself by doing that yet.
  • If you are married but have no children, you must defer to blood relatives of your spouse on any matters like surgical consent, end-of-life decisions and other major health and legal matters.
  • Once you no longer have any minor-aged children, you lose all the benefits of marriage as noted above.
  • Adopted children don’t count, as marriage is for the purpose of spawning families, not acquiring them.

So, once those changes are in place, you same-sex marriage opponents have my backing. Because then, you’ll finally be practicing what you preach about what marriage really is about.

Slip-Slidin’ Away…

Ladies and gentlemen…recognizing the legitimacy of homosexual and bisexual relations, along with recognition of same-gender marriage, will not lead to some collapse of civilization. Trust me. Given the fact that some of you may think homosexuality has never been a publicly endorsed concept, maybe you need to do a little more research into some ancient Greek folks who had some feared and effective military forces in which getting it on with your shield-mate was perfectly fine.

So, why is the whole same-sex sex thing on my mind again?

Recently, I started following a Twitter account called RP_Newsletter. It’s a great account that spends most of its time showing how crazy, deluded, homophobic and racist Ron Paul is by printing excerpts from the various newsletters he now claims he had nothing to do with (despite having publicly associated himself with them in the past). The account gets a bit repetitive at times, but it’s nice to be made aware of just how out-of-touch and dangerous many of Ron Paul’s views have been (and chances are he still holds most or all of those views). For example, Ron Paul seems to have a notion that the rise of HIV/AIDS is directly linked to rising acceptance of homosexuality in society, which pretty much proves he must have been a shitty physician, since any doctor worth his salt knows that sexually transmitted diseases don’t give a shit as they evolve into nastier forms whether you’re banging a fellow dude on the sly or openly.

Also, we have Rick Santorum in the race to be the GOP presidential candidate against Ron Paul and others, and I love how that jackass seems to think that legal recognition and acceptance of same-sex stuff will lead to legal incest, bestiality, pedophilia and adultery.

That last one really tickles my funny bone, given the fact it’s not really illegal to commit adultery NOW, and it’s far more widely practiced than same-sex relations. In fact, it’s one of the most popular sexual activities among Democratic AND Republican politicians alike.

But what this all has me in mind of is that strange notion that if we acknowledge that some people are gay (or bi) and that they have a right to make that choice as grown folks and be proud of who they are, that there is some slippery slope awaiting that we will all fall down, with civilization as we know it dragged down in tatters behind us.

Such a notion shows that believers of such things don’t have much in the way of critical-thinking skills. Of course, it’s also become clear to me that given how insanely obstinate, cruel, obstructionist, classist, evil, greedy and mean-tempered so many conservatives are these days, most who support them obviously don’t know what critical thinking IS (especially if they are working-class or poor folks supporting the GOP).

First off, there is no slippery slope connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. Despite all the high-profile stories of priests and altar boys, the fact is that pedophilia isn’t about same-sex relations. It’s about sick fucks who abuse children, and a lot more heterosexual sick fucks out there do it than homosexual sick fucks. You see, homosexuality is way different; it’s overwhelmingly about people making decisions to have sex with other age-appropriate folks who happen to have the same sexual apparatus. Point is that homosexual relations are overwhelmingly consensual. Pedophilia is overwhelmingly abusive and non-consensual. There is no comparison.

Same thing with bestiality. Animals can’t give consent. Aside from the fact that equating sexual relations between two people with sex between a person and an animal is just plain damn rude, ignorant and insensitive, there just isn’t a comparison. Sexual relations with an animal is forcing YOUR desires onto the animal, which inherently has less power than you do with your bigger brain and opposable thumbs. Sure, there are a few dogs here or some other animal now and again that might take the initiative to mount a human, but generally speaking, they don’t want to go there. But again, recognition of same-sex relations, which are consensual, does not compare to bestiality at all.

And incest…well…OK, there is a potential progression there. I admit it. At least if we’re taking consensual incest. If you’re talking about Uncle Joey making inappropriate moves in his young niece or nephew, that’s pedophilia primarily, and the incest portion is just secondary crap that make the whole situation sicker. But there are folks of consensual age who are attracted to close relatives and don’t see anything wrong with having sex with them. For me, this is a taboo area. I think it’s an inappropriate line to cross. But at the same time, who the hell am I to tell, for example, two adult siblings whom they can or cannot have sex with? Why should there be any issues of legality involved here? Why should we be able to criminalize the act of ANY two adults in full control of their faculties that involves sex? Logically, there is no reason, because it’s between those two people and no one else.

Sure, I see value in criminalizing adult choices that put others at risk or cause them undesired harm (such as driving under the influence or choosing to rape someone), but the only risk of incest aside from the “ick factor” most of us feel about it is a slightly increased risk of genetic problems in any children. But Lord knows, plenty of people who aren’t blood relations can legally have kids when they have high risks of passing along bad stuff to their kids. In the end, though, the vast majority of people don’t want to have sex with their close relatives, except maybe first cousins in some situations, which is actually legal in a lot of places. But folks generally don’t want to have sex with siblings, parents or grown children. They just don’t. It’s such a small group compared to homosexual folks, which are already a subset of the sexually active adult population, that I don’t see a big rush for people to cry out, “We want incestual marriage legalized.” Sure, it COULD happen, but I just don’t see a big fanbase for that rising up in protest.

My dear conservatives, your slippery-slope theory is slick, but ultimately sloppy.

Why don’t you just drop the same-sex slippery slope theory and move on. You were wrong (and often still are) in terms of your racial views, and the same goes for your same-sex paranoia. Many of you crowing the loudest probably have some same-sex baggage in your closet anyway, so just shut up already.

A Blow for Marriage Equality

I had been watching for the outcome of the referendum to repeal the Maine state legislature’s enactment of a law which would allow gays and lesbians to marry, with all the rights that go along with heterosexual marriage (aside from federal tax breaks), and with a provision that made it clear that no clergyperson could be compelled to perform a same-sex marriage.

I was pleased when the legislature made that law, because it ensured equal rights for consenting adults on the marriage field, but also protected the religion beliefs of churches, most of which, I am guessing, would not want to perform such ceremonies. Not that they need to, of course. There’s always the Unitarian-Universalist church, a justice of the peace, or a priest or reverend who’s probably in line with your beliefs who doesn’t mind going to a different beat than the other folks in his or her denomination.

I was not pleased when voters overturned that law.

But what really got me was the comment from someone my wife is acquainted with, who tried to make like she didn’t really feel one way or the other about it (though she’s a pretty fundamental Christian, and she’s pretty clearly against it), but voted against it because the legislature acted against the will of the people.

This floors me on two levels.

First, legislatures often make laws without much consulting the people. This is nothing new, and does make for laws people hate sometimes. But it would be rather inefficient to consult the masses on everything beforehand. Besides, the legislature snuck in some nasty snack and beverage taxes recently too, and no one got up on their high horses with religious diatribes and “slippery slope” theories to get that overturned.

Second, how could this woman have voted for the will of the people, when the will of the people cannot be known until after the vote? She claims she was upholding the will of her fellow Mainers, but when she went into the voting booth, she had no clue which way the tide was running. She is simply too cowardly to admit that she voted for her will, which was to marginalize a sizable group of productive, consenting adults.

I call total bullshit on this. Have some cajones and just admit that you can’t stand the idea, and be done with it. Don’t make up stupid lies.

Running Him Haggard

I haven’t really talked about Ted Haggard, who lost his position as pastor because of a series of homosexual encounters that he had. There’s a reason for that: By and large, I don’t really harp on pastors in the news because of their personal peccadilloes, sexual or otherwise. When they have personal failings in their lives, that isn’t on my radar that much. Reading up on their exploits and travails doesn’t sit well with me and doesn’t interest me, just as the latest celebrity sex scandal really doesn’t light my fire either.

Personally, the time for me to rag on a pastor who’s in the spotlight (or even not in the spotlight) is when I see him leading his flock astray with wrongheaded attitudes or unsound doctrine or skewed spirituality or somesuch.

So, why am I mentioning Haggard now?

No reason, except that I don’t have a better topic in mind, I don’t think most of my readers want another installment of my novel posted again so soon, and because Chez over at Deus Ex Malcontent posted about Haggard recently, so he’s on my mind a little.

People have said a lot about Haggard, and I’m not going to go into a detailed recounting here. You have links above you can click on, so if you don’t already know, find out from folks who’ve followed this more closely.

What I want to address is the notion that he was done wrong by his former congregation. It’s not a simple “yes” or “no,” though, because it depends on what you’re asking.

Was it wrong that he was pretty much forced to leave the position of pastor because of the scandal? No.

On that count, I totally agree that he should have stepped down or been removed had he refused to. In fact, I would say that he should have stepped down long before his same-sex activities came to light publicly. I don’t say that because I have anything against homosexuals. Some of my best friends are, or have been, gay. Or lesbian. The point is that that sexual lifestyle is at odds with the doctrine of that church. If he is going to regularly have gay sex, and he wants to be a pastor, he needs to be the pastor of a church where gay sex is accepted. Someplace where the doctrine says that loving homosexual relationships aren’t really what the Bible decries, and that God meant something else in the Bible.

I mean, if the man was an active alcoholic, that should also disqualify him from pastoring, as the Bible is clear that a pastor shouldn’t be prone to abusing drink. An adulterous pastor also has no business at the pulpit. Most Christian churches hold to certain doctrine, and if the congregation is operating from a standpoint that certain core things are very wrong, a pastor who does those things as a matter of course should be getting gone.

He’s welcome to start his own congregation somewhere else, as long as he’s open about who he is and the congregation is cool with that.

Now, I’m not saying that you kick a pastor out because he slips up and has one brief affair or one-night stand. Or even if he is found to have once or twice gotten a blowjob from a transsexual hooker or something. A fleeting or short-term sinful failing is something that a congregation should be willing to help the pastor work with and overcome.

A long-term or lifelong tendency to do that act that is counter to the church’s doctrine over and over again is something else entirely.

Now, as to the shunning he apparently got by his friends and former congregants. How do I feel about that? It was totally shitty. And wrong.

If there is someone in the church, whether pastor or not, whom we claimed to have loved as a fellow Christian, and we drop them like a hot pan in our bare hands because they do something wrong, we are not being Christ-like. We are not doing right by that person. We should still love that person, and try to understand and help that person, in whatever way we can most effectively do so.

That may simply be support. It may be patience. It may be acceptance.

The bottom line is that we shouldn’t hang our people out to dry because they’ve done wrong or made a spectacle of themselves. By all accounts I’ve heard, Ted Haggard got treated wrong on a personal basis.

He should have been removed from the pulpit, but he should have been embraced by his chruch thereafter.

End of story.

Same Sex…So What?

two-guysI realize I’m a bit late coming to the whole Proposition 8 party. And I’ve been hesitant since starting this blog to post about the issue of whether homosexuality is or isn’t a sin, simply because it is so easy to get misunderstood on this issue. Passions do run high on both sides of the issue.

But, I’d be a bit of a wuss to just go and hide under a rock and pretend I don’t have thoughts or opinions on the topic. Lord knows I’ve stuck my nose into a lot of other sexual areas (literally and figuratively).

First, let me ask this of anyone who’s felt a need to point out to homosexuals that the Bible calls homosexuality an “abomination before God” and other such stuff: When was the last time you went all-out and told your friends and neighbors to:

  • Stop gossiping?
  • Stop coveting other people’s stuff?
  • Stop lying?
  • Stop bitching about how awful your parents are?
  • Tell your spouse about that affair you’re having?

OK, it might be that some of you have done all that on a regular basis and if so, great, at least your hypocrisy level is not too out of whack, if it’s out of whack at all. Because all those other things are sins. In fact, they are all sins that are part of the Ten Commandments. I find it interesting that that’s God’s top-ten list and homosexuality doesn’t make it in there. Nor does Jesus ever preach against homosexuality that I recall.

Also, while there are many places in the Bible in which man-on-man sex is specifically decried, nowhere, to the best of my knowledge, is lesbianism declared a sin. I don’t simply mean that this is one of those situations where one can infer that the woman is supposed to follow the same rule; I mean that man-on-man sex is so specifically addressed that it is virtually impossible to substitute “woman” for “man.” So, you can imagine that I am somewhat torn on how seriously to take the sin of homosexuality. (Of course, men were involved with the writing of the Bible and sometimes, human failings find their way into the Bible…maybe it’s genetic that us guys dig girl-on-girl sex.)

I acknowledge that God made us primarily and overwhelmingly for the purpose of getting together as man and woman. That is clear from the anatomy. Our natural, default state is to go hetero. Hard to argue against that.

But is homosexuality a sin? It’s a harder sell to me in some ways, but it is mentioned as a no-no in the Bible an awful lot of times. I’ve heard arguments that biblical prohibitions against homosexuality were actually against religious rituals that involved homosexual sex, and not against homosexuality specifically. Under that agument, which has some holes I must admit, it would be more an idol worship/other-gods-before-me situation that was being targeted.

I’ve also heard people make the case that there is a difference between engaging in homosexual sex (from time to time) and being in a homosexual lifestyle. That also seems slim to me, as it would still violate the rules against fornication in the former case, whereas someone could at least argue that a committed gay couple was married. So, fornication in the former case and possibly a sin of homosexuality in the latter.

Again, the issue is pretty messy.

But my basic view is this: I don’t care if you are gay or lesbian.

I just don’t. I care if you are a basically decent person. And from the standpoint of being concerned about your eternal future, I care much more whether you are born again (though I’m not going to shove Jesus on you forcibly) than I do what kind of consenting adults you sleep with. I have known many gay and lesbian people in my life. Some of them acquaintances, some of them simply co-workers or work associates, some of them friends. No close relatives that I know of, but I have more than a hundred cousins and second cousins, so clearly there are numerous gay or lesbian folks in my family somewhere. What they do in their bedrooms or anywhere else with their bodies is between God and them and their partners. Not me. I have friends and relatives who engage in sex outside marriage, too. And who have told many a lie. They are still my friends and my beloved family, and if I judge them at all, I judge them by their overall actions, not individual ones. Not, of course, that it is my place to judge anyway.

And, I don’t fear gay marriage. It is no way whatsoever impacts on my life or my marriage or my religious beliefs. It is not a threat. I do agree with folks who say that a firm line must be drawn somewhere in marriage laws as to how far we can go. Multiple spouses needlessly complicates an already complicated system around divorce, inheritance and custody, in my opinion. Incest is just plain icky (though I have to admit I don’t have any logical argument against why two siblings, as adults, couldn’t choose to be together aside from biblical prohibitions). Marrying animals is even more problematic than multiple spouses. Marrying minors there is no excuse for, nor is there any excuse for having sex with them.

But gay marriage? A union between two adults who aren’t related? I just don’t see a reason to argue against it from any reasonable standpoint of a secular government in a pluralistic and very diverse nation.

Homosexual sex. Homesexual marriage. Not my business. Not a fight I feel needs to be fought. Are they sins? Maybe. I guess. Probably. If for no other reason than I can’t see a biblical basis for same-sex marriage in the church, and therefore homosexual sex would still be premarital sex (of which I myself have been guilty before getting married, over and over again) from that religious-marriage standpoint—though not from a secular-marriage standpoint, of course, in places where same-sex marriage is legal.

But if gay sex is a sin, I cannot categorize it as anything worse than any other sin: Lying, coveting, cheating, failing to honor parents, etc. And before any numb-nut says, “Oh, so I guess murder isn’t some big sin either in your book,” let me just shut you up now. Murder, assault, theft, false witness and adultery, for example, cause direct and purposeful harm against another person. As such, I will have a more visceral reaction and want those things to stop and, in most of those cases be prosecuted (except for adultery) because they are hurtful to another. Whom does homosexuality hurt? If anyone, the person doing it. But it doesn’t hurt me or any innocent bystanders, now does it?

Below are some posts recently about the Proposition 8 issue. I include them here not only because I think they are solid posts with a lot of good and/or thought-provoking comments by readers of the blogs (aside from some anonymous dickhead trolls), but also because I have posted my own comments at some of these blog threads about my various thoughts regarding homosexual marriage and some other gay/lesbian issues, and rather than go through all of what I said there by copy-pasting here, you can go there and see some of my other views on the issues in context, along with the views of a bunch of other people, many of whom are smarter and more eloquent than I.

Forever Hold Your Peace (Deus Ex Malcontent)

While We Were Celebrating (Raving Black Lunatic)

Faux Marriage and Legal Definitions Do Matter (Caffeinated Thoughts – I actually didn’t comment on the second of those two posts; only the first one)

Proposition Hate (The Field Negro – Didn’t comment here because I didn’t see much need for me to add anything to the already lively discussion)

The View Needs Glasses (Margaret and Helen – I don’t believe I commented here; too easy to get lost since there are so many comments on her posts most days)

P.S. If the guys in the image I used here aren’t gay and are sensitive about their sexual orientation being questioned, my apologies. Screw that, I don’t apologize. That was an image I paid for, I get to determine usage, and that looks like a 50/50 chance it’s a romantic stroll on the beach to me… 😉

Cry for the little children? – by Mrs. Blue

OK, I’m going to cheat a little here today. It took a loving Mother’s Day message earlier this month to get Mrs. Blue to even post a comment on this blog. And even though she writes a monthly column for a newspaper and blogs periodically, I’ll be damned if I can get her to do a guest post around here. Well, we had an interesting conversation recently that she was quite fired up about, so I’m going to re-channel and re-work as much as I can remember of what she said and write the guest post for her since she can’t free up the time to do so. My wife’s thoughts/words, but my fingers doing the typing. Don’t worry, she read, altered and approved this before I posted it.

The passion with which some Christian folks worry about children reared by same-sex couple amazes me. It also can make me really sick to my stomach. My husband shared with all of you not so long ago a little story about “Mrs. Eager” and now let me share my own.

Don’t get me wrong, by the way, I like Mrs. Eager. Sadly, I find that just about all we ever have to talk about is the Lord, and just as sadly, I find that she has a lot of the same focus on pointless issues as do so many other fundamentalist Christians (of which I consider myself a member, by the way, I just don’t go into lockstep with the “party line”).

So, I recently had a conversation with Mrs. Eager during which we were talking about the owners of a local bistro-style eatery. The owners are a couple. The are both men. They have a nearly two-year-old girl they adopted who is often at the cafe. Can you guess where this is going yet?

Mrs. Eager starts going into major hand-wringing mode about how it’s bad enough for two men to be together that way, but how could they be raising a little girl? What is this going to do to this little girl? What were they thinking?

Mind you, she’s nearly in tears. She’s all frothed up about how this little girl will be brought up in a godless home filled with immoral actions. How this little girl is going to be a lost soul most likely. How she’ll be damaged growing up.

It was all I could do to hold my tongue and not rip this woman a new exit passage for her bowel movements. I had that serious of a visceral reaction to her frantic panic about this child’s future. Mind you, it’s not because I agree that homosexual sex is right. I’ve had lots of gay friends, and I consider the cafe owners I’m talking about now to be friends-in-the-making. I cherish those friends and I don’t get any more bent out of shape about their sin than I do the sins of any other friends who have or continue to flaunt certain of God’s rules. Much like Jesus, I don’t simply hang around the believers; it’s the people who sin (and don’t have Jesus to clear up those sins) who need my company on the off chance a little Jesus might rub off on them.

What I don’t understand about Mrs. Eager or any of the other many, many Christians I know who I am 90% certain hold the same concerns is why they are so worried about a child like this. This gay couple is very warm, very open, very caring, very involved in the community, very responsible and just all around good people. Do they have any Jesus in their lives? I don’t know. But just like there are plenty of people who claim Christ and are horrible folks, there are many wonderful people who remain unsaved.

The point is, they are obviously great parents. And their little girl is clearly a happy and secure child. I’ve worked in social work, so I know the signs of f-ed up people. If these two guys are doing something nefarious in their lives aside from flouting the no-homosexual-sex rule, they have the best poker faces on the planet.

Mrs. Eager seems worried that this child won’t ever know Jesus. That may be, but I know an awful lot of people in heterosexual family structures who don’t know Jesus either…and most likely never will.

Mrs. Eager seems worried that this child will be exposed to deviant activities. In this day and age, are there really people who still believe that gays are any more overt in their intimacy around children than other sexually active adults? C’mon people, they aren’t having sex on the floor in front of her playpen.

Mrs. Eager told me she “weeps for that little girl.” Why? I know so many kids in heterosexual families who would kill to have parents as devoted and involved as these two guys. So many dysfunctional families in the world, so many abusive or uncaring parents, so many families in poverty…and Mrs. Eager is weeping over this kid? Why isn’t she weeping over the orphans left in the Sudan or the children who have to pick through garbage dumps in Central America or who have to drink disease-ridden water in India? Or how about weeping over homeless children in this country? Sexually abused children in this country? Children who aren’t “perfect” enough or young enough to be adopted by families who are in search of healthy babies only…and who languish in the family services systems in this nation that are, in many cases, so utterly screwed up?

Mrs. Eager is full of crap. I like her, but she is full…of…crap. This child is fortunate. It’s high time that we as Christians look at the REAL problems around us. If we are going to worry about people’s daily lives, let’s start with the abused and neglected, shall we? And let’s not worry about the soul of some little girl who, frankly, isn’t any more at risk of missing out on Jesus than any other child in this country…or this world. Let’s worry about everyone’s souls and reach out to people as humans.

And let’s stop singling out those whose choices we simply don’t agree with (and which don’t impact our lives) to weep over THEIR children.

(Image is of a print by Mark Ryden, titled “Weeping”)

(If you want to read any of Mrs. Blue’s other infrequent posts around these parts, go here)

Tying the same-sex knot – by Big Man

As promised last week, a guest post from Big Man over at Raving Black Lunatic. Because you get enough of the sound of my virtual voice already, I’ll just shut up now and, without further ado, let the man talk… 


My main man Deacon Blue offered me the opportunity to enter his spot and post some of my thoughts on religion, particularly on the topic of homosexuality.

Look, I’m not going to beat folks over the head with a whole bunch of spiritual quotations about how God feels about being gay. Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of the Bible understands that the Big Guy isn’t a fan of same-sex relationships. I also don’t want to hear about shellfish and period sex. If you think pointing out the crazy rules in Leviticus is a good way to win an argument about whether God supports homosexuality then you really need to do a better job of studying your theology. When it comes to homosexuality the rules are the same as they are for fornication; don’t do it. Those are God’s rules, and we as Christians have to deal with them or move on.

Deal with them, or move on.

That seems to a sticking point for a lot of Christians. Now, it’s not my place to tell people whether or not they truly have a relationship with Christ, but I’m going to wager that if you are flagrantly breaking one of God’s commandments with no sense of repentance, well you might have a problem. And if your justification for breaking that commandment is that the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally, well I think we might be practicing a different type of faith.

But, I digress. I laid out those ground rules because I want to talk about a prickly subject for believers and non-believers.

Gay Marriage.

First off, let me just put it out there that despite my early comments on homosexuality I’m actually a supporter of gay marriage. I think any adults in America should have the ability to engage in a legally recognized union and call that union marriage. This marriage should bestow upon them all the rights of any other marriage. That’s where I stand.

Now, for some folks this may seem to be a confusing contradiction given my earlier comments. But, that’s only because those people either have a mistaken viewpoint about how God’s word interacts with American society, or they just like to argue. Either way, let me break it down.

Despite all the religious trappings, marriage in America has become a largely secular practice. We rarely take the whole idea of a ban on pre-marital sex seriously, and the idea that the only suitable reason for divorce is infidelity seems to be a foreign concept to many new couples. Nowadays, marriage means “I agree to live with you until I no longer want to live with you.”

Given these new realities, it seems pretty stupid to me to argue that allowing gay people to engage in this sacred event will somehow endanger the future of marriage for straight folks. Newflash, marriage is already in the crapper and allowing gay folks to join the party won’t have any effect.

Seriously, is anybody going to say “Well, I wanted to live with you forever, but now that gay people can get married, what’s the point?” Really, do we believe that’s what’s going to happen?

Nah, I don’t think that’s what most people believe. What I think is that most people, deep inside, believe that being gay is wrong, but they really don’t want to get into that argument with folks. Actually, I would respect conservative politicians more if they just came out and said they were against gay people instead of engaging in this whole marriage charade. That would be the open and honest way to express their feelings and it would give gay conservatives a real choice to make. Granted, it also might open politicians up to criticism and protests, but that’s the price you pay for speaking your mind.

Instead, politician and their constituents would rather focus their attention on whether gay people should be allowed to get tax benefits along with their lifelong bonds, or if gay people really deserve to call their unions “marriages.” They use the word of God as crutch to support their theories without even actually explaining when it became the American way to force everybody to abide by God’s rules.

After all, I don’t see a similar movement to ban divorce and fornication. Marchers still haven’t take to the streets to fight against lying and covetness. And it’s not because the Bible singled out homosexuality as an abomination, Proverbs lists seven abominations that include pride and gossiping and nobody’s passing a law against them.

No, what we’re really doing is picking on a minority group that most straight people don’t feel any kinship towards. I’ll admit that my actions towards gay people haven’t always been great, and I can’t say I’m totally comfortable with the lifestyle. But, my qualms and my faith do not give me the right to dictate how consenting adults behave in the bedroom or at the altar.

Gay marriage is as American as apple pie, vanilla ice cream and fucking in the backseat. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.