The denial of rights in 2010 is an absurd concept, so it deserves an equally absurd counter argument. We’ve had civil rights, women’s rights, but somehow gay rights were neglected while Barack and Hillary were showing us how far we’ve come as a society and as a country.
Gay marriage still manages to strike the nerves of millions of Americans; some shout slurs, others clutch their Bibles and start quoting verses like they’re possessed. However, America is based upon a meritocracy, the firm belief that if you work hard and are determined, the opportunities to lead a successful and happy life are there.
Why then are we shutting the door and imposing our will on the personal lives of people who contribute to our society? Gays and lesbians can do our taxes, fix our cars, vote in our governments, but they can’t have a companion? This is hardly a fair give-and-take relationship.
And have heterosexuals done such a stand-up job of upholding the “sanctity” of marriage? That last frontier our society has before we slip into pure debauchery?
The divorce rate in America for a first marriage is 41%, according to divorcerate.org. The numbers become even more dismal as heterosexuals try a second and third time, with the number rising to 60% and 73% respectively. If gays and lesbians want to try and beat the statistics, what do they have to lose aside from alimony payments?
Even more baffling is how the United States government has regarded this issue with the same sense of urgency as someone who has to go to the DMV to renew their license: constantly putting it off, waffling and trying some odd concoction of “playing the middle.”
Scrolling through the issues page on President Barack Obama’s webpage is a prime example: 24 other issues have lengthy explanations detailing why he has the right formula to remedy all these problems, and the highly contentious gay marriage issue isn’t even mentioned.
Every state aside from Alabama, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska has at least one LGBT elected official, according to the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute. Ironically, an equally meager section of the country allows gay marriages (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont). Prominent elected officials today include Rep. Barney Frank from Massachusetts and New York City Councilmember and Speaker Christine Quinn. These trickle down across the U.S. to lower elected positions like sheriffs and appellate judges.
Clearly gays and lesbians are working their way into positions of prominence in our government and society only three decades since Harvey Milk, a UAlbany alumnus, became the first openly gay elected official in 1977.
But gay marriage is far from a sure thing. California felt the sting of gay marriage taken away last summer when Proposition 8, a voter initiative that repealed gay marriage, was upheld. The outrage was felt all the way across the country when the decision was announced. Thousands of protestors marched from Greenwich Village up to Union Square in Manhattan on May 26th with signs and chants.
The main arguments against gay marriage is a religious one; we’re constantly bombarded by what God wants, what God wrote, what God intended for the institution of marriage. One of the core teachings of any major religion, while it may be phrased differently, is the principle of “Do unto Others.”
Before you pass judgment or make a decision, the teachings instruct you to pause and ask yourself if you’d want that type of treatment. Would heterosexuals want their right to marry, and statistically, divorce, to be taken away from them?
Based on failure rate alone, the populace should press Congress to ban second and third marriages because they’re tying up our courts and wasting valuable resources, and God wouldn’t want that.
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2. the gay couple will never have to agonize over sterilization
3. the gay couple will never have to agonize over abortion
4. the gay couple will never have to have an untimely birth, and when they want one, there would be money in the house.
5. the gay couple, through adoption, has control of choice in: sex selection, race, appearance, motor, psych and mental skills. They are not obligated to choose a disabled child because they do not birth any.
6. the gay couple will be less likely to have to experience debt, as the burden of educating and raising children, while keeping them safe and healthy.
The agony that homosexuals have to deal with regarding their orientation is no more nor no less than the agonies hetero married couples must face in life. Gays want all the joys, none of the sorrow: heteros always will have BOTH. You call that fair? In fact it is a human rights violation, HAVING NOTHING TO DO W/RELIGION. Oh, and dare I ask if it is fair for the gay married woman to have the magic right to look her same lovely self after getting a child in comparison to the trainwreck heteros wives look like after going through the PAINS of birth, which the oh so privileged and newly endowed gay married woman does not have to endure. Nor the fact that she might have to have her belly opened, uterus exposed, for a child to come out, and pay $12G for that RIGHT? Wow, what a privilege! Which hetero married woman WOULDN'T give her right ovary to have a painless birth, look like a princess immediately afterward, cost nothing, and can even take part in CHOOSING a perfectly cute, non-disabled, right sexed, perfectly TIMED baby? Only the elite of the elite! The gay married predominately white class, who simply must regard that stupid breeder predominately-black class of getting nothing right! C'mon now Irving, be a good civil rights advocate. After all, this nation is based on meritocracy! You can show a little compassion for those who actually have to laboriously WORK at marriage on ALL these tiring issues that gay married couples don't face.
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