Gay All The Time

At times, Marriage seems to dominate my thinking.

Not sure why, except that I think way too many people are missing the finer points of why we need to have it clearly stated, across the Globe, that two men or two women can be legally bound in Marriage. Now, that doesn’t mean any Religious Order has to perform that ceremony, or even acknowledge it, but it does mean that our Government MUST.

While there are practical benefits, financial ones as well, there is another more important reason WHY IT HAS TO BE MARRIAGE. To begin with it is about the CHILDREN. I know, it sounds a bit odd, but kids learn racism, hatred, and bigotry from the Adults and Society. If we teach them that being different is somehow evil, somehow UNGODLY, we are teaching them HATRED. Take how the Religious Right objected to the simple fact that in the popular children’s book series, Harry Potter, that Dumbledore was Gay.

When you have Presidents, Popes, and other Authority Figures going around saying that it is vital for the moral well being of a nation to DENY EQUAL RIGHTS to a portion of their society, it sends a signal to the kids. It tells them that Gays Aren’t Equal, are somehow bad. It leads to taunts, to bullying in schools, and it leads to violence. Just ask the parents of Mathew Shepard.

Having the right to Marry won’t end that kind of thinking, but it goes a long way to ending it. Yet it does more than that, because it also becomes a symbol for Gay Teens. It says to them, while they recover from the physical and mental abuse of their peers, that there is HOPE. It says to them, as they contemplate ending their young lives, that things can change, that AUTHORITY DOES RECOGNIZE THEM AS BEING EQUAL. It says that they are just as worthy of being a part of society as any heterosexual is.

And that is a POWERFUL SYMBOL. It can make the difference between a gay teen becoming one more suicide statistic, OR NOT.

A leading cause of death among Gay Teens, IS SUICIDE. By doing what is right, by not highlighting the differences, we can help make that a non issue. By granting of MARRIAGE, we say to the Gay Teens that they are not pariahs, that they are not evil or worse. Now I don’t know, but from all I have read about Jesus Christ, that is sort of what he stood for, to take unto him the unpopular? Makes one wonder why it is HIS CHURCH that is so adamant about keeping homosexuals in the closet, doesn’t it?