…the state amendment to ban gay marriage if you live in Maine.
1. Because America is a Christian nation. That’s why Hindus and Muslims aren’t allowed to marry.
2. Because marriage is an intrinsically religious legal ceremony. That’s why atheists can’t get married and why you can’t have a non-religious ceremony.
3. Because gay marriage will undermine traditional marriages. We all know traditional marriages always work.
4. Because gay marriage is disgusting and we don’t want to think about what they’re doing in the marriage bed. That’s why we never let ugly people or morbidly obese people or old people marry.
5. Because marriage is for procreation. That’s why infertile couples and childfree couples aren’t allowed to marry.
6. Because if we allow gay marriage, then schools will have to encourage it among our children. That’s why everyone is pushing interracial marriage on kindergartners all the time.
7. Because if we allow gay marriage, churches will be forced to marry gay people. Like they’re forced to marry anyone else who walks through their doors.
8. Homosexuality is a mental illness and/or an abomination. If we let gay people marry, we’ll have to let other people with mental illnesses and people who engage in sexual immorality marry.
Okay, all irony aside: You may not like gay marriage. You don’t have to like it. But it is constitutional on a strictly legal level, two completely consenting adults getting married by a justice of the peace in a non-religious ceremony. Any subsequent religious ceremony doesn’t have to be official, just as commitment ceremonies between gay couples now aren’t official.
I don’t usually bring politics into this blog, but this just seems rather simple to me. Deep down, it’s about gay sex disgusting people. And you know what? I don’t care if it disgusts you. Disgust does not a law make. It may not be pretty to you, but in this secular nation with a separation between church and state, a specific religious moral outrage shouldn’t trump the constitutional right to a legal marriage. Separate but equal is not enough.
Please, completely serious now, vote NO on Prop 1. If you can, provide financial support. Early money in the campaign is important. Greta Christina has a good post on why Maine is important in the national effort towards legalizing gay marriage.
(This is an oldie but a goodie for me, and I will continue to use it as long as we have these fights.)
Ha, brilliant. It also amazes me when people think the ‘but marriage is for children!’ argument is actually going to get them somewhere.
By: gonovelgo on August 25, 2009
at 6:42 AM
To the author of this blog:
I just wanted to thank you for making things clear… even in a sarcastic way.
I am one of the 18k club in California. I married my partner (of 10 years) just three days before the November, 2008 election.
We had planned a small wedding of family and friends. But as the election got closer, we feared the outcome and ran to the courthouse like a shotgun wedding.
It was a bittersweet day. Though we finally had the right to marry, we were forced to do it swiftly—almost secretly—for fear of impending hate at the ballot box. From what I hear, Maine Same-Sex couples don’t even have that option.
I can’t express how it feels to know that your private rights can be ripped away by a majority vote, and how it feels to wake up the day after an election, turn to your spouse and say, “Are we still married?”
I can’t express how it feels to have the fate of your marriage in the hands of a State Supreme Court… or the “majority” of voters.
I can, however, express my gratitude for your support. Now that the same group that pushed the lies of Prop 8 on the voters of California have arrived in Maine for an encore.
I beg the voters of Maine; please SHOW us Californians (and NOM) that Mainers are a little wiser. That you respect fellow citizen’s rights, and aren’t gullible enough to fall for the lies and the fear.
By: Michael Dougherty on September 14, 2009
at 12:44 AM