"The Pros in the Throes"
by Kirk Duval

"A powerful way to affirm traditional marriage is to have strong marriages between committed people." Nyack, New York mayor John Shields, who recently made his town the first in the United States to recognize gay couples' marriage licenses (be they from San Francisco, Canada, Massachusetts, or any other locale), spoke those words in a press conference. His town's recognition is just one recent groundbreaker in an extensive series of landmarks, milestones, protests and exultations in the heated debate over gay marriage. As each side becomes more and more intense (in some cases, to the fevered pitch of insanely shrill) the one question I am left to ask is, "Why? Why the debate, why the heat, and above all- why the shrill?"

The basic principle of human rights is "everyone is equal." Following this principle, all people have equal rights. Everyone except homosexuals, that is, which is to say that homosexuals aren't people, which would make whatever their birth certificates, social security cards, tax forms, and registrations to Saks say one big misnomer. It is ridiculously absurd for me to think that equal rights for all people should be prevented in this country; this country that for so long prevented the equal rights of blacks and the equal rights of women and the equal rights of Japanese and apparently just pretends to be regretful about it all.

Gay marriage is perhaps viewed as an affront to the sanctity of traditional marriage and families; the sanctity that ends in an over 50% divorce rate with 25% of all men being unfaithful. A woman marrying another woman will not cause the breakdown of the family unit. How could it when it has already happened? Also note, "preserving the sanctity of traditional marriage" is the same language that was used in argument against interracial marriage. How many people now are saying, "Boy, they sure were right about how blacks marrying whites would lead to unholy damnation and the absolute upheaval of society"?

Perhaps the cause of unrest is imagining the happy homosexual married couple with children. Is this the downfall of society? Is it taking children out of orphanages and placing them into the care of two loving parents; two parents with exactly the same capacity to love as a man and woman? Or is the downfall in going through the struggle and great effort of artificial insemination? Couples who want children this badly are the types of couples I would want having children. There is no scientific evidence that being raised by a gay couple automatically makes the child itself gay; if this were the case then the straight parents of the gay couple would have made them straight, and then there would be no need for me to transmit this: the pros in the throes of the gay marriage debate.

I don't know all the arguments of religion; what the Bible says or what your pastors teach. I don't really care. Religion has no place in my perspective. I am talking about a governmental law issue, and I put trust in my country that separation of church and state will be observed and that the constitution our country was built upon will not be ignored or styled to suit the purposes of those more empowered. Calling homosexual relations unnatural is scientifically inaccurate (if you believe in science), and is nothing more than a pathetic and transparent attempt to cover the fact that it is simply not understood. Gay marriages do not lead to incest or bestiality; they are not connected in any way. Nor do gay couples fit any definition of deviance I have ever read. I don't argue against refusing gay marriage in your congregation just as Catholics refuse divorce, but this right should not need the nationwide approval of a religious group. It is not about religion; it is about civil marriage licenses.

Civil unions are a possible compromise, which is great because compromising on civil rights is the best and only true way to equality. Civil unions are a type of labeling that demotes gay couples to a different category, quite like when our country moved from slavery to segregation (note the 'history repeating itself' motif). Separate is never equal, and I would assume this idea is contained somewhere in the expanse of any logical, and historically educated, American's mind. Even gay marriages at a state level are not fully equal due to differences in Federal, and other state's laws which prevent the more entrepreneurial states their aspiration of full and complete equality. This denies gay couples some 1,049 protections and benefits offered to federally recognized marriages.

I am led back again the ask, "Why? Why the debate, why the heat, and why the shrill?" I am not asking for a separate right called "gay marriage." I am asking for the right to be equal; a right people died for, and a right I thought they had succeeded in securing. I see no legitimate reason for people to be so scared and so hateful and to take such extreme measures to prevent equality; especially an equality that appears to be inevitable, inevitable in that, marriage is the greatest expression of love, and if we have banded together to fight for marriage, then what have we done but banded together to fight for love? This above all other reasons is the purpose of the struggle, and this above all other convictions is what I believe: that, in the words of Geoffrey Chaucer, "Love Will Conquer All."

Source
1) http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/20/time/fidelity.poll.html- 25% statistic taken from and according to the 1994 University of Chicago study titled The Social Organization of Sexuality, which is generally considered the most accurate report on Americans' sexual practices to date.