Oh I love a good wedding and with a few perplexing exceptions, my wonderful and delightful friends are paired up and wedding season seems to be waning in my world. (To all the single ladies in the world, I know of the last, smart, witty, fun, single and caring man on earth... give me a call and I'll assess your worthiness for an introduction.) He's a straight as the day is long, so any of you single guys out there have to keep looking.
Any-who... back to my point. The local news lately is filled with what I see as progress in our state. I'm talking about the historic votes to allow all couples, regardless of gender makeup to marry. Unless something drastic happens it will pass the next legislative step and then the Governor will sign the bill into law. It's a darned complicated process but I'm rather excited about it.
I'm sure the signing into law won't be the end of it, there will be people who will sue, those that will suggest that a law won't be valid unless its voted on by the citizens of our state, but I say 'whooie!' We elected the folks in Olympia and their work stands for us all - just because you don't like it doesn't make it wrong. My dad taught me that. It was a blinding lesson in reality, where he told me to "want in one want and spit in the other and see which one gets full first." I had to test that theory about five times before I really figured out that wanting wasn't all that productive. I also learned that a handful of spit wiped on the couch will get you sent to your room.
I know plenty of people who feel with the most deepest of convictions that homosexuality is a sin and that allowing these 'sinners' to marry is an affront to the foundations of marriage. I don't agree, but I respect their right to believe that way. I also respect their right to pick and choose which parts of the bible to follow. Rules such as if you rape a woman and she isn't married you have to marry her. We don't stand by that one... or the penalty for adultery being death by stoning. Other non-practical rules, such as crop rotation have been clearly moved aside as not relevant to our modern society, and I doubt that all priests still don special undergarments when they approach the alter, lest the die of guilt (that's in Exodus, and thank you Google for a fruitful search of absurd Bible laws.) I don't discount that many modern churches and religious organizations still call homosexuality a sin. That is fine, for them.
Churches and religious organizations can (and should) lead their people according to their beliefs and interpretations of Gods (or whomever) divine law. Those teachings however should not extend to how laws are crafted in our modern, religiously free society. Who is to say that YOUR view of God is the same as mine or that it is more relevant or more right? Basing laws on a specific moral code is not acceptable in our modern civil government. Sure, thou shalt not kill has wormed its way into our legal system, but come on, when you murder someone you trample their civil rights just a bit. It's not only an infringement of their ability to dine at McDonalds but also ties back to the 10 commandments. However, we have not created laws that can result in capital punishment for all the commandments. I can find no civil code to prohibit anyone from envying their neighbor or their hot wife.
I support the rights of Churches to opt in or out of performing, supporting, condemning or endorsing same sex unions. They can deem me a sinner all day long for my support for that matter. However, the State (a non-religious based entity) should not participate in mandated discrimination of any kind.
The argument that a same sex union harms the fabric of or society, the basis of families or will impact the marriage of anyone else is (again I say) whooie! There have been gay couples for ages and it hasn't really harmed anyone, or impacted the fabric of society. I would argue that the feeling that these people should stay closeted or that it's ok to bully gay kids or anyone) has done more harm than loving acceptance would have done. Just as a sham marriage between two complete strangers or celebrities has no impact on my world, a union between two women in Yakima would have zero impact on me. That's not entirely true, if I knew them, and was invited to the wedding I might spend some money on a new dress, a wedding gift or two and maybe a hotel room. That is a positive impact to our economy, that's not a bad thing.
The fight isn't over, the discussion will go on for a while, but hopefully it will be resolved once and for all and we can move on to bigger and more important things.
By the way, I was trying to look up a statistic that would support a statement I thought I wanted to make about most serial killers being heterosexual males and accidentally downloaded a rather large PowerPoint presentation from Radford University entitled "Serial Killers". Should anyone important be monitoring my online activity I'm not doing research for extra curricular activities. Turns out, the report makes no reference to sexuality other than to note that serial killers have a higher rate of sexual abuse in their past than the rest of the population. Since consenting adult sexual behavior isn't abuse the point is irrelevant. Point to note, abuse and dismembering of animals is a VERY strong indicator of future deviant behavior and should be taken VERY SERIOUSLY.
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