The "Controversy" Over Gay Marriage

Mother is angry again, or still, I am really not sure which anymore.  It is starting to mess with my calm though and I am not fucking happy about that.  I have been trying to sew for the past three days but I can't even concentrate on that because I am so damned angry.  I am sick and tired of mean, selfish people, and I am especially tired of listening to them whine and complain about other people being mean to them!

If you have been around me for any length of time, you know Mother is an adamant supporter of all personal freedoms and the personal responsibility that is necessary to maintain those freedom.  You cannot have one without the other as far as I can see.  This whole controversy over gay marriage is so ridiculously freaking stupid to me that I find it hard to comprehend to start with, but then to have those who create the controversy try to claim that people shouldn't be upset about it, and they certainly shouldn't criticize it in anyway, well that is just wrong.

Let me be very clear here, Gay people did NOT cause the controversy over gay marriage, they are just the latest in a very, very LONG line of people who have been singled out for their "differences" and vilified and abused in the name of "God" and religion.  I don't know what world some people think they live in, but in the world I live in, a marriage license is a legal contract issued by the government.  Period.  When my husband and I got married we went to the city hall to apply for our marriage license, not a church.  And I do not recall anyone testing my virginity before they issued it, nor do I recall my father giving him any goats or sheep in return for taking me off his hands. 

Just because someone sees marriage as a "religious institution" does not make it so for everyone else.  If churches do not want to preform marriages for gay people, that is fine, I absolutely support their right to refuse to do so.  I would not contribute financially to that church in anyway (not that I would anyway), and I might even talk about how I thought they were mean for doing so, but I fully support their right to do so, and to tell the world that they are doing so.  But they have NO right to tell me that the laws of our government should conform to their beliefs.  Churches are given tax exempt status for a reason, they are supposed to stay OUT of our government and its laws!

Okay, so the gentleman from the Fast Food Restaurant chain who actively opposes gay marriage is not a church, he is a business man, and he (I will give him the benefit of the doubt here because I really have no idea) probably does pay a lot of money in taxes, and he absolutely has the right to speak out on any issue that he wants to speak on, and support any cause he wants to support.  As long as he takes ownership of his words and his beliefs, I actually salute him for standing up for what he believes in, and for telling people just where their money is going when they eat at his restaurants.  I do NOT support his beliefs, I find them offensive, and as much as he has a right to express his beliefs, I have the same right to express mine. 

People seem to conveniently forget that 60 years ago it was illegal for a black man to marry a white woman in some places in the U.S. of A., and why was that?  Oh yeah, cause the bible said it was bad.  100 years ago women couldn't vote in this country, and why was that?  Oh yeah, because the bible said that was bad.  200 years ago, slavery was legal in this country, and why was that? Oh yeah, because the bible said that was good!  Does anybody REALLY want to have our laws determined by the bible?  I sure as hell don't.  And since the bible talks pretty adamantly against being wealthy and greedy and unkind, well, some people really ought to be careful about just what they are wishing for.