…and wonder whether I should write some. I ought to know better, actually, than to read the letters page in the newspaper. Especially letters signed somebody whose name I really can’t be arsed to remember, Kristent samlingsparti (or whatever it is they call themselves, and no, I will not google them, I do not want to contribute to their hit count). It left me feeling exasperated and a little tempted to go on a rampage of sorts.
Ok, ok, I get it. Some people are against the new marriage equality law.But I need some explanation, nevertheless.
So you’ve read the bible and found that it says that teh gays they are teh evilz (though, you know, I read it too, and I never found that part), and therefore they need to be saved from having happy fulfilling lives and be “cured” into miserableness and probably forced to marry someone of the opposite sex and procreate, because that-thing-you-call-god-which-bears-little-resemblance-to-my-God apparently thinks the world is underpopulated.
That’s fine.
Ok, it isn’t fine, but I can sort of see your point if I tilt my head and squint a bit. You’re entitled to your opinion, even if I fundamentally disagree.
But how, how, HOW can you describe Bill and Ted down the street finally getting the legal recognition of their loving and faithful relationship over the last 20 years as an “attack on those of us who want a normal marriage”? No one’s talking about YOUR marriage. No one CARES about your marriage. You’re married? Fine. Good for you. If your marriage is so frail a thing that the fact of someone completely unrelated to you getting legal recognition of a relationship YOU wouldn’t want to be in then, you know, perhaps it’s how YOU handle your own relationship you should be worried about and talk about and do something with.
See, I’m not gay. The person I fell head over heels in love with and who happened to fall in love with me and whom I married a while back and hope to God (mine, not yours) I will stay married to until death do us part (and oh, let that be in a good many years) is of the opposite sex. And I hold our marriage sacred. But it matters to me NOT ONE JOT that Bill and Ted get married and live happily ever after too. In fact, it makes me rather happier, in that the more people in this world who are happy, the less people are likely to go on murderous rampages (or to write moronic letters to the editor, because, have you noticed, really happy people don’t feel the need to put other people down). It makes our marriage no less valid, no less valuable. Neither does Jane and Ben getting a divorce or the fact that Joe beats Diane senseless every Friday, though the former makes me kind of sad and the latter hopping mad. But it doesn’t affect OUR marriage.
You know, you probably heard this before, but it seems to bear repeating: Go get your bible and read the bit about loving thy neighbour as thyself and doing unto others etc. again. It’s in the New Testament. You know, that bit of the bible you’re supposed to hold especially dear if you’re a Christian.
I meant to forget all about that stupid letter and not write all that, but then Faith posted this at Shakesville and I really needed to post it too, and the other bit sort of just happened. Video emphatically not safe for work (well, the sound isn’t, and you really need the sound on):
I admit to being new to the idea of marriage being awesome, having spent several decades … not really getting it, even though I almost did it. Turns out, meeting the right person DOES affect these things.
And I agree: there is nothing about two people of the same sex that threatens my future marriage in any way whatsoever. If anything, you’d think peoples complete disregard for of what marriage SHOULD mean (ie, Britney’s 55 hour “for fun” marriage) … well, let’s put it this way: Gay folk aren’t the ones ruining marriage for the rest of us. :)