Don't let your schooling interfere with your education.
~ Pete Seeger

Friday, October 10, 2008

Marriage Equality Revisited

By request, I've come back to this subject. I'll probably come back to it again.

In the recent presidential and vice-presidential debates, the issue of marriage equality has come up. I heard Joe Biden say he was against it, but was for making some second-class institution that would assure same-sex couples have the same rights as different-sex couples – a sort of separate-but-equal system like the school systems of the past that ensured white schools were more equal than black schools. (I'm paraphrasing here.) Sarah Palin came right back by stating that she's tolerant, too, and she's for all that separate-but-equal stuff, too, but frankly, given her past record and the things she's said, I think she was flat-out lying.

To me, that is not marriage equality. Sarah Palin's pale attempt at 'tolerance' is unconvincing and inadequate. Joe Biden's position doesn't address the inequities of the current system adequately, either. Obama's position is especially troubling, as he must be in contact with many black people who suffered under the old Jim Crow laws.

When I say I'd like marriage equality, I mean just that. The law applies to all people the same, equally, without difference, regardless of what the Bible or the dictionary say. After all, we're not a theocracy. The Constitution was written as a secular document for a reason. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified for a reason. That reason is a vision of a nation of free people who can choose to live life according to their conscience and convictions, without tyranny from either despots, or the majority.

'Nuff said.

2 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

I, too, am disturbed that none of the candidates has come to enlightenment on this issue. It's a grave disappointment and indictment of our society and its so-called freedoms.

David and Sarah Carrel said...

ok, I guess that answers my question and more. I thought Biden was stating your side, but I guess not. I do disagree about your statements about the constitution being secular, although I know you will disagree with me on that one as well, but I found an article about it that I will post below. I know that most of the framers of the constitution had a belief in God, in some way or another. The reason that they did not force God on people is because that is what they were fleeing from, a church run state that was wrong. But they did have a strong belief in God as is evidenced by their lives, all kinds of documents and quotes from them, as well as other sources (that is if the history books have not all been rewritten). I mean, what do you do with "In God we trust" and plenty of music like the Star Spangled Banner?
Anyway, hope you are doing well Seda, thanks for taking time to answer my question.

http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/04-29-05.asp

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller

Reading List for Information about Transpeople

  • Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green
  • Conundrum, by Jan Morris
  • Gender Outlaw, by Kate Bornstein
  • My Husband Betty, by Helen Boyd
  • Right Side Out, by Annah Moore
  • She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan
  • The Riddle of Gender, by Deborah Rudacille
  • Trans Liberation, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transgender Emergence, by Arlene Istar Lev
  • Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transition and Beyond, by Reid Vanderburgh
  • True Selves, by Mildred Brown
  • What Becomes You, by Aaron Link Raz and Hilda Raz
  • Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
~Hafiz