I can't figure out how the hell to embed this with this application, so go to this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHyy8gkNEE
So he gets a little maudlin and florid with his speech at the end. Yes. So do most people when they speak on marriage in general.
I speak from personal experience when I say that yes, people who could have otherwise led more fulfilled, honest existences end up fucking up other people around them thanks to society telling them that an honest feeling from their heart will damn them if they seek to cement it the way that couples comprised of two people of the opposite sex can and do. I've dated men who were gay and didn't trust me or the world enough to let me in on it even though we were best friends otherwise. I have been that person who didn't want the man I was with but I was terrified because my own family would have rejected or judged me, or should they have accepted me, would have faced judgment and harassment from people in the small town they live in. I lost a chance to be with a girl I loved because she and her husband both belonged to families and social circles who would have, at the very least, shunned them completely, and in one instance there probably would have been physical violence against them. One of my aunt's husbands was gay, and they had a child together. He left my aunt. My cousin grew up without a father because his mother thought she could fix another person and make them "decent". My cousin is gay. I don't know if he's wired that way or if it was a choice influenced by his unpleasant relationship with his own mother, her pressuring him to be interested in the opposite sex. I don't know what he suffered at the hands of other people who were dragged through their home when he was growing up. My mother took up where her sister left off and tried to influence him in his behavior and orientation. He finally got out of Tennessee and went away with someone both of us went to junior high with. I haven't seen him since he left the state shortly after his mother's death, and I don't want to. I want him to stay away, because these people who "love" him? They would do him no good. They would only hurt him more.
My mother and I were sitting on the front porch talking one day last summer. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but she mentioned something about how ridiculous it was for gay couples to have the right to adopt children. She said something about my cousin. "Oh, I even asked him, right to his face! I said 'Are you gay, ****? Because we can get you help.' I asked him, and he didn't respond, but I know. I know he is." Like it's a disease. Like it's a perversion. She went on to point out that marriage is a union of a man and woman by the word of "God". She didn't understand why I sat there on the verge of angry and horrified tears at these words coming out of her mouth. If she believed anything at all in that Book, if she believed in that God, the Christian God, if she were educated enough to realize how many times that book has been (mis)translated and how much influence misogynists and ignoramuses have had on those mistranslations, how much gold has greased scribes fingers as they set ink to scroll... if she knew any of this at all, would she be so quick to condemn real love between two people and a desire and right to be joined and recognized in the eyes of the law that we have set in place, just because they have the same junk in their pants? For that matter, what the fuck does the Church have to say in matters of inheritance of property, money, and any care instructed to be rendered to a person upon that person's partner's death? It's not about the Church. It's not about morals or personal taste. It's about personal property. If Jill had married Jack instead of June, she'd be set for the rest of her life, but since it was June and not Jack whom she pledged her love and faithfulness to, and because a person who didn't know either of them or the nature of their love for each other decided to decree that two vaginae do not a lawful marriage make, Jill's fucked. Jill loses precious things of her lover's to her lover's family because the family didn't approve. Jill receives no recompense from June's insurance company or place of work nor reprieve from her own employment to grieve. No penis, no deal, Jill. Sorry.
Gay people like to party. Gay people are promiscuous and they lie and hurt the people they love. Gay people have diseases and a total absence of morals. This is true of as many straight people as of homosexuals. Who I choose to fuck, who I choose to open my heart to, who I choose to live the rest of my life with will effect the things I do, the way I think, the things that I hold important in life. They will influence me, yes. But that has exactly nothing to do with his or her gender or sex and absolutely everything to do with this: that person I choose to be with.... drum roll please.... is HUMAN. A man has just as much a chance at being a horrid influence, a bad provider, a lying abusive asshole, as much a chance at being a bad thing for me and whatever child I choose to or choose not to have with him... just as much a chance for all these things as a woman would have. I promise you. I know, I've been there, so you can't say it's a lie. A real human being with a good heart and a deep soul will seek out another spirit that is harmonious with their own, and if that person's eyes are really open and her heart is not poisoned by the fear instilled in them by people who are uneducated about their own beginnings and meanings, if her mind is not made muddy with the hate that is spread by people who have such fear-poisoned hearts... that person, man or woman, will love who they wish, will be with whom they are most compatible with, will cherish and protect and love their soul mate, and what that mate has hidden in their underpants will not mean a damn thing. It will not stop that desire, that love.
Our planet is anything but underpopulated. There is a drive in us to procreate, true, but that doesn't mean we have to. That does not mean every blessed pair of people on the planet has to spew little humans from forth their loins just because they can. Most shouldn't, but most do. Marriage is not making-babies-time. Marriage is I-love-and-honor-you-and-will-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-growing-and-living-and-learning-with-you time. To what end? Love. Not babies. Love. Babies are born of love sometimes, yes. They are not a requirement, though. So, that whole "go forth and procreate" argument is invalid. Love is why marriage is.
Granted, no government should have a say in what is and is not love or what is and is not marriage, true... that's as preposterous as some fellow in robes who has a completely different value system from me telling me that I would be wrong to marry a woman. You cannot measure another human being's feelings against your own. You cannot compare their love to yours. You can't measure their pain against your experience. If I have a little child, and that little child stubs her toe or is stung by a bee and screams and cries like the world is ending, or if she likes another person and that other person is mean to her and disrespects her feelings, I'm not going to look at her and say "Oh, get over it." "Oh, grow up." "When I was your age...." I'm not going to do that. It would be wrong for me to tell her that she is wrong for hurting just because I have known things more painful than when *I* first stubbed my toe, or first was stung, or first had my heart broken, because she does not know that pain, and a response like those above would be motivated by a certain amount of impatience born of bitterness. Oh child, that doesn't hurt because there are people starving. That doesn't hurt because that boy lied to me and didn't listen when I said no. That doesn't hurt because they took my uterus because you decided to happen to me. These are ridiculous responses and wrong reactions, just like it would be ridiculous and wrong to tell someone to "get over" being gay, or "get over" not being married because God hates you fags. Hello, my name is Bitter And Dissatisfied And Threatened By Your Happiness And Self Acceptance.
There is enough hate in this world, true. And there will always be more. More tomorrow than today. When that hate ebbs momentarily, the flow of destruction and hate and chaos will come back stronger than before, because that's life. We're only human, right? We can't help that we judge and hurt each other. We can't help that we are demanding, controlling, and territorial to the point of destroying each other's lives completely because our religions and social systems don't mesh. Right?
I have a tender heart, and a nagging optimism and hope at the core of it, no matter how dark it gets or how black I feel. I want to think that we will learn to be better to each other than this. I want to wish and hope that we will cease to be so meddlesome and instead turn that energy to things more important, things more pressing. Is that what it's about? Oh gods, we're all going to blow each other to smithereens with our A-bombs, so I'm going to pick on this guy because he likes other guys and that makes me slightly uncomfortable. I am threatened by the fact that two women can satisfy and complete each other so well that they don't need to have a penis enter the equation, so I'm going to write to my senator about it and make sure he knows that he's not Christian if he allows them to continue on in their merry lives. Is that it? Because if it's not, please explain it to me.
If you are able to read this, I have a feeling that you'll agree with most of this. If you know me and love me at all, you know how deeply my conviction concerning this runs.
If you disagree? How dare you judge. Take your hate-vomit elsewhere, and remove me from your friends list. Remove yourself from my life. I hope I get no surprises from this, but this is how much I needed to say all of this, and this is demonstrative of the depth of my feeling these things.
And just to clarify: I love my husband. He is the one whom I have chosen to be with for as long as he'll have me. Had he been a woman? Perhaps the state of Tennessee and our families would not have recognized us as partners, but there would still be rings on our fingers, and we would still be together. We might be someplace other than this state, where perhaps we wouldn't be discriminated against and criminalized. That would be the only difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHyy8gkNEE
So he gets a little maudlin and florid with his speech at the end. Yes. So do most people when they speak on marriage in general.
I speak from personal experience when I say that yes, people who could have otherwise led more fulfilled, honest existences end up fucking up other people around them thanks to society telling them that an honest feeling from their heart will damn them if they seek to cement it the way that couples comprised of two people of the opposite sex can and do. I've dated men who were gay and didn't trust me or the world enough to let me in on it even though we were best friends otherwise. I have been that person who didn't want the man I was with but I was terrified because my own family would have rejected or judged me, or should they have accepted me, would have faced judgment and harassment from people in the small town they live in. I lost a chance to be with a girl I loved because she and her husband both belonged to families and social circles who would have, at the very least, shunned them completely, and in one instance there probably would have been physical violence against them. One of my aunt's husbands was gay, and they had a child together. He left my aunt. My cousin grew up without a father because his mother thought she could fix another person and make them "decent". My cousin is gay. I don't know if he's wired that way or if it was a choice influenced by his unpleasant relationship with his own mother, her pressuring him to be interested in the opposite sex. I don't know what he suffered at the hands of other people who were dragged through their home when he was growing up. My mother took up where her sister left off and tried to influence him in his behavior and orientation. He finally got out of Tennessee and went away with someone both of us went to junior high with. I haven't seen him since he left the state shortly after his mother's death, and I don't want to. I want him to stay away, because these people who "love" him? They would do him no good. They would only hurt him more.
My mother and I were sitting on the front porch talking one day last summer. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but she mentioned something about how ridiculous it was for gay couples to have the right to adopt children. She said something about my cousin. "Oh, I even asked him, right to his face! I said 'Are you gay, ****? Because we can get you help.' I asked him, and he didn't respond, but I know. I know he is." Like it's a disease. Like it's a perversion. She went on to point out that marriage is a union of a man and woman by the word of "God". She didn't understand why I sat there on the verge of angry and horrified tears at these words coming out of her mouth. If she believed anything at all in that Book, if she believed in that God, the Christian God, if she were educated enough to realize how many times that book has been (mis)translated and how much influence misogynists and ignoramuses have had on those mistranslations, how much gold has greased scribes fingers as they set ink to scroll... if she knew any of this at all, would she be so quick to condemn real love between two people and a desire and right to be joined and recognized in the eyes of the law that we have set in place, just because they have the same junk in their pants? For that matter, what the fuck does the Church have to say in matters of inheritance of property, money, and any care instructed to be rendered to a person upon that person's partner's death? It's not about the Church. It's not about morals or personal taste. It's about personal property. If Jill had married Jack instead of June, she'd be set for the rest of her life, but since it was June and not Jack whom she pledged her love and faithfulness to, and because a person who didn't know either of them or the nature of their love for each other decided to decree that two vaginae do not a lawful marriage make, Jill's fucked. Jill loses precious things of her lover's to her lover's family because the family didn't approve. Jill receives no recompense from June's insurance company or place of work nor reprieve from her own employment to grieve. No penis, no deal, Jill. Sorry.
Gay people like to party. Gay people are promiscuous and they lie and hurt the people they love. Gay people have diseases and a total absence of morals. This is true of as many straight people as of homosexuals. Who I choose to fuck, who I choose to open my heart to, who I choose to live the rest of my life with will effect the things I do, the way I think, the things that I hold important in life. They will influence me, yes. But that has exactly nothing to do with his or her gender or sex and absolutely everything to do with this: that person I choose to be with.... drum roll please.... is HUMAN. A man has just as much a chance at being a horrid influence, a bad provider, a lying abusive asshole, as much a chance at being a bad thing for me and whatever child I choose to or choose not to have with him... just as much a chance for all these things as a woman would have. I promise you. I know, I've been there, so you can't say it's a lie. A real human being with a good heart and a deep soul will seek out another spirit that is harmonious with their own, and if that person's eyes are really open and her heart is not poisoned by the fear instilled in them by people who are uneducated about their own beginnings and meanings, if her mind is not made muddy with the hate that is spread by people who have such fear-poisoned hearts... that person, man or woman, will love who they wish, will be with whom they are most compatible with, will cherish and protect and love their soul mate, and what that mate has hidden in their underpants will not mean a damn thing. It will not stop that desire, that love.
Our planet is anything but underpopulated. There is a drive in us to procreate, true, but that doesn't mean we have to. That does not mean every blessed pair of people on the planet has to spew little humans from forth their loins just because they can. Most shouldn't, but most do. Marriage is not making-babies-time. Marriage is I-love-and-honor-you-and-will-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-growing-and-living-and-learning-with-you time. To what end? Love. Not babies. Love. Babies are born of love sometimes, yes. They are not a requirement, though. So, that whole "go forth and procreate" argument is invalid. Love is why marriage is.
Granted, no government should have a say in what is and is not love or what is and is not marriage, true... that's as preposterous as some fellow in robes who has a completely different value system from me telling me that I would be wrong to marry a woman. You cannot measure another human being's feelings against your own. You cannot compare their love to yours. You can't measure their pain against your experience. If I have a little child, and that little child stubs her toe or is stung by a bee and screams and cries like the world is ending, or if she likes another person and that other person is mean to her and disrespects her feelings, I'm not going to look at her and say "Oh, get over it." "Oh, grow up." "When I was your age...." I'm not going to do that. It would be wrong for me to tell her that she is wrong for hurting just because I have known things more painful than when *I* first stubbed my toe, or first was stung, or first had my heart broken, because she does not know that pain, and a response like those above would be motivated by a certain amount of impatience born of bitterness. Oh child, that doesn't hurt because there are people starving. That doesn't hurt because that boy lied to me and didn't listen when I said no. That doesn't hurt because they took my uterus because you decided to happen to me. These are ridiculous responses and wrong reactions, just like it would be ridiculous and wrong to tell someone to "get over" being gay, or "get over" not being married because God hates you fags. Hello, my name is Bitter And Dissatisfied And Threatened By Your Happiness And Self Acceptance.
There is enough hate in this world, true. And there will always be more. More tomorrow than today. When that hate ebbs momentarily, the flow of destruction and hate and chaos will come back stronger than before, because that's life. We're only human, right? We can't help that we judge and hurt each other. We can't help that we are demanding, controlling, and territorial to the point of destroying each other's lives completely because our religions and social systems don't mesh. Right?
I have a tender heart, and a nagging optimism and hope at the core of it, no matter how dark it gets or how black I feel. I want to think that we will learn to be better to each other than this. I want to wish and hope that we will cease to be so meddlesome and instead turn that energy to things more important, things more pressing. Is that what it's about? Oh gods, we're all going to blow each other to smithereens with our A-bombs, so I'm going to pick on this guy because he likes other guys and that makes me slightly uncomfortable. I am threatened by the fact that two women can satisfy and complete each other so well that they don't need to have a penis enter the equation, so I'm going to write to my senator about it and make sure he knows that he's not Christian if he allows them to continue on in their merry lives. Is that it? Because if it's not, please explain it to me.
If you are able to read this, I have a feeling that you'll agree with most of this. If you know me and love me at all, you know how deeply my conviction concerning this runs.
If you disagree? How dare you judge. Take your hate-vomit elsewhere, and remove me from your friends list. Remove yourself from my life. I hope I get no surprises from this, but this is how much I needed to say all of this, and this is demonstrative of the depth of my feeling these things.
And just to clarify: I love my husband. He is the one whom I have chosen to be with for as long as he'll have me. Had he been a woman? Perhaps the state of Tennessee and our families would not have recognized us as partners, but there would still be rings on our fingers, and we would still be together. We might be someplace other than this state, where perhaps we wouldn't be discriminated against and criminalized. That would be the only difference.