As tempers are already flaring, it may be wise to leave gay marriage out of political discussions this election year, but because we are a society of people driven by our emotions, that most definitely will not happen.
We are in the midst of a war that does not have a foreseeable conclusion, our deficit is reaching dangerous levels, people are starving, babies are dying, and yet our politicians are taking an awfully large amount of time trying to revise the most sacred of American legal documents, all to stop something that doesn't really affect them or their supporters personally.
Nevertheless, if approved, the gay marriage ban will be the first forbiddance added to the Constitution since the 18th Amendment in 1919, which prohibited alcohol. This new one won't work either, because it just doesn't fit.
The U.S. Constitution may have its origins in Christianity, but the document itself is nothing more than an optimistic list of rights. This dusty piece of legislature was the bare bones of the American foundation, and they were writing it for all Americans.
Of course, I say that knowing that most of these men owned slaves, treated homosexuality as a disease and equated women to "baby ovens." Things have certainly changed. We still limit the people we feel are below us, but now we expect them to contentedly support their absence of rights.
Our morals have gotten in the way of discovering something really basic: whether the majority of Americans like it or not, the members of the gay community contribute to our society just as they do. Gay Americans pay the same income, property and sales taxes that we do. Some gay men and women fight in our armed forces overseas. Gays and lesbians also vote for the same people we do.
You rely on homosexuals every day in the same ways that you rely on members of the opposite sex, race or religion. They teach your children in your schools, they fly your planes, they write the news stories and columns in your newspapers and they served you your coffee this morning.
These people have no direct influence on you, provide for their families just like you do and serve their country the same ways that you do, yet there are tons of people in this country going out of their way to block from gays and lesbians the very rights that we expect this country's government to provide us. If anything, it should be the straights of this country who should be ashamed of their contradictory autonomic beliefs.
None of these brave moral leaders we follow are suggesting a tax cut for homosexuals to make up for their clear disproportion in rights. None are suggesting that gay men be exempt from the draft because they clearly are not equal to other soldiers. They are, however, trying to protect the sanctity of a concept that lost its inviolability a long time ago.
So you do what you want. Hold up your offensive posters and make phone calls to talk radio programs. Hopefully, in the end, you will understand that all of that won't matter. The gay community is a part of every community everywhere, and sooner or later you're going to have to drop those iron morals or you're going to have to move.
Write to Gregory at gttwiford@bsu.edu
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