Ban All Marriage Now!

Politics, Religion Comments Off

I am not gay. No one in my family is gay. I know a few gay people, but no one in my inner circle of friends. So when I tell you that straight marriage is an issue I couldn’t give a damn about, you can understand how little I cared about gay marriage. What did grab my attention was the ballot results of proposition 8 in California and the aftermath.

Gay marriage seems to have become the hot topic again, after the controversial ballot that passed in California banning gay marriages and invalidating thousands of gay marriages that have already been performed. This seems to have upset many, but not me. I see it as a step forward. Don’t misunderstand me, I have no problem with gay people or their wish to have equal rights. In fact I am all for it. What I have a problem with is the current institution of marriage.

The ban of gays marrying is justified by statements such as “a threat to the American family” but unless marriage turns gay people into murderers or terrorists, I can’t rationalize that statement. Could it be that gay marriage is frowned upon in the bible? I think so. So based on one religions principles we are taking rights away from our own citizens. Hmmmm…I could have sworn there was something in the constitution about separating church and state, at least as far as making policy.

Another excuse that I often hear in defense of the “traditional family” is that it is the cornerstone of our society, and I actually have to actually agree with that statement, to a certain extent. Families are an integral part of any society as far as procreating, nourishing and educating the kids until they are old enough to start their own family. The problem lies in the idea of “traditional family” that has some how, over the last 100 years become husband-wife-kids. Throughout history, this has rarely been a standard template for a family and has only become the norm in the last century, but even if we concede this as a norm, I still cannot see how gays are going to ruin the system. Allowing them to get married will not turn straight people gay, and banning marriage will not cure the gays, so like I said before, unless marriage turns gays into murderers, this excuse is retarded as well. There is no reason, outside of a religious bias, to deny gays marriage. Or is there?

All that being said, I once again reiterate that I think prop 8 was a step forward. Here is what I mean; Marriage today consists of 2 parts: a ceremony and the paperwork. The ceremony can be a religious one or can be a formality performed by a city official. The paperwork on the other hand is the formality that takes care of all of your benefits: prenuptials, taxes, benefits etc. Religion is then an optional part of the proceedings yet is the basis for denying gays rights and benefits. Whats going to be next? Ban Jews from marrying cause they killed Jesus? Ban atheists cause they don’t believe in god? Ban all people of color cause Jesus was a white man from Oxford? I digress.

I say lets treat everyone equally, with the same rights and benefits under the law and cut out the religious influence of policy making. So, I am here and now calling for a complete ban of marriage as a legal institution. We have already banned gay marriage, now lets ban straight marriage.

I know we, and by we I mean all of us religious and non-religious normal people together, cannot force closed minded religious nuts to ever accept gays and if we allow gay marriages, it will inevitably piss them off, again. At the same time we cannot deny rights to a whole group of people simply based on who they love and what they do in the bedroom, something that the government has no place to govern. I say lets make civil unions the norm for all. Raise the benefits of civil unions to include everything that you get from marriage and cut out the ceremony. If people still want to tie the knot under god, then can go and do that on their own but it must not have any implications under the law. This way the religious extremists could still have their sacred institution protected, and the gays would have all the rights they deserve. Hell they can even find sympathetic priests that could marry them under god as well, and if anyone has a problem with that, it wont be a public issue anymore.

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