Proposition 8 – The Fervor With Gay Marriage – Part I

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I feel this is a good topic for me to bring up, due to the fact that I’m vacationing in Southern California (beautiful place by the way) and this has been a big issue lately in the United States, so I’m using this as a “themed” topic for myself.

This item and the entire gay marriage debate has been a hot topic lately. You can argue this is our “Women’s Suffrage” or “Civil Rights” issue of today. Should people who are gay/lesbian “be allowed” to marry. Of course, I’ll be getting a lot of answers, mainly in the “NO” column more so than any other answer out there. I’ll also received a lot of “justifications” as to why the “NO” answer has been given, though a lot of the justifications don’t have any legs to stand on (usually they fall upon the typical they don’t like it, or throw religion as an answer, as well as other items that frankly don’t have much gravity).

Let me ask every straight couple that is married a few questions. Does having a gay/lesbian couple married changes your marriage to your spouse? Do you lose any of the privileges that come with marriage to your spouse (namely tax breaks, power of attorney, et. al.)? Are you suddenly going to get negative rights because a gay/lesbian couple got married?

For those that argue that marriage is “sacred” and utilize the religion route, let me remind everyone that marriage is a social contract, not a religious one. Before your Abrahamic religions hijacked marriage as their own, marriage was set up as a social and at times legal contract. You need sources? Sure, how about Hammurabi’s code (established before Judaism, Islam and Christianity’s existence), the history of marriage in Europe, China, and the like.

Let me tell you how sacred it is. With TV shows like the Bachelor, the Bachelorette, Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire and all these other nonsense items. Next time someone gets married, how about they ignore the paperwork they have to fill out in the county and rely on their church/tabernacle/mosque/other place of worship. Really, go ahead, tell me how that works out when you have some of the items I’ve listed in the third paragraph?

Here is what it comes down to. I value the “Equal Protection Clause” and am very against the “States Rights” statements people make when it comes to personal liberties and civil matters. Equal rights means exactly that, and equal privileges mean exactly that as well. A right is not a right when it can be given to some and not to others. A right is not a right when it can be taken away from you. We call those privileges, and if that’s is the case, marriage is a “privilege” to everyone, not to a group whom you agree with only.

As long as you’re willing to pick and choose when rights are applied and when rights are not applied, you don’t value liberty, and you surely don’t value the Constitution. Leave others alone to their way of life and extend the same privileges you get as well. If they are good enough to pay taxes, work, donate to charity, go to war, then surely they are good enough to have marriage as well.

– “Classic Liberal”