Keep Your Traditions. I’ll Keep Mine.

As a staunch member of the Straights for Gays, sometimes I still have to step back and really let it sink in that people truly, honestly, are against it. And even further, the reasoning behind it. I watched an argument between two people that went something along the lines of a hater saying that because gay people can’t reproduce – which is apparently the number one point of marriage, just proving that these people are stuck in centuries past, because I’m pretty sure I married for love. Children were just a happy byproduct – then the union is unnatural. Supporter says, clearly you haven’t heard of sperm and egg donors, surrogates, adoption. Hater says that pregnancy through donors and implantation is not natural, and therefore, again, same-sex marriages are not natural. Supporter says, what about straight couples who use donors, surrogates, and IVF? Hater had no answer. And also, what about adoption? Are the haters going to say that that’s unnatural too? Idiots.

And of course, this all brings to question something that no one can possibly overlook: If not being able to bear children is what makes the marriage unnatural and wrong, then shouldn’t we be forbidding elder couples from marrying? What about anyone who is sterile? What’s that? No? It would be wrong and unconstitutional? Well then.

In the midst of thinking  about people’s asinine thoughts on gay marriage, I want to toss this out there:

And then, because nothing sums it up better than the rant used by my friend when she shared this:
“After reading this several times and laughing the entire way through, I can’t decide what’s worse. Of course my brain seized over the grammar (what adult doesn’t know how to spell ‘lying?’ Also, ‘ect.’ Seriously?) and the inconsistent capitalization of God.
But then I took a look at the content, and realized that… if she believes it’s a sin in God’s eyes, then she most likely believes or heard of the Sodom and Gomorrah story, which would have taken place, y’know, some time prior to the 70s, give or take a few years.
Also, to bogart Wanda Sykes, if being gay is a choice, then it means being straight is a choice. Not to mention, I can’t think of a single person who would choose to be hated by so many people for no reason at all. I hate it when people go there. If they want to hide behind religion, fine, do what you want, but to say it’s a choice, ugh, idiots.”

The constant panic attacks at the worries that same-sex marriage will magically undermine the “traditional” marriage blow my mind. Every single person who thinks that way needs to go to a state where it’s already legal (come on and visit New York, I can put you up in our Manhattan apartment), and ask every straight couple how they feel about their marriage now that gay couples are married too. I guarantee none of them feel as if their marriage is somehow in peril. If you feel that yours might be, then the problem lies within your marriage, not someone else’s.

And let’s talk about traditional marriages. Since everyone wants to pick and choose from the Bible to oppose same-sex marriage, maybe they need to be reminded of some other points:

• Marriages are to be arranged and must be in the same faith.
• A wife should be subordinate (Ephisians 5:22)
• A woman must prover her virginity, lest she be stoned (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)
• If a man dies without having sired a son, his widow must marry his brother and reproduce with him until they have a son (Mark 12:18-27)
• Concubines and polygamy were norms.

Yep. Things sound all well and dandy with those traditional family values. You can go ahead and keep those, thank you. I’m not very interested.

Although, it’s too bad Richard and I had #3 and #4, I would have finally had that excuse I needed to bang his brother. Darn.

Bristol Palin Thinks Obama Needs to Be a Dad

Oh, that Bristol Palin (or, Sarah Palin mouthpiece, sometimes it’s hard to tell). First she begs the President to call her and apologize for Bill Maher (who’s show is considered comedy) making insulting comments about her, because he did the same for Ms. Sandra Fluke, after being torn to shreds for 72 hours by Rush Limbaugh (who’s show is considered news and opinion).

Now she accuses him of consulting with two tweens to make important decisions.

I laughed for easily a solid sixty seconds.

She starts off by complaining that when females run for high office, they’re asked if they’ll get their husbands approval before making any important decisions, but that these same people had nothing to say when President Obama referred to his daughters the other day when he clearly spoke up in support of same-sex marriage.

The problem here is that, if she truly believed that that’s what happened, it means she didn’t even listen to a word of what our President said.

For the record, this is how his daughters were referenced in his speech, “You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and, frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

Yes, because mentioning that your children have friends with same-sex parents and you thought about what that all means, is exactly the same as your children telling you what your opinion is. His daughters have friends who have same sex parents, and because they are young, they are completely comfortable with this and blissfully ignorant of the fact that these couple are ‘different.’  That particularly feeling, the obliviousness to the differences, is what Obama believes should be the norm, and from there, concluded that it’s time for a change.

Ms. Palin feels that, instead of contemplating on basic human rights, that what our President should have done was tell his daughters “that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage.” Hmm. Okay. In fact, she believes that children are better off in a mother/father home and that “Ideally,” fathers are the cornerstone for shaping their kids’ view of the world.

“Says the unwed single mother of one whose baby daddy is the living embodiment of Goofus from Highlights.” (Gawker)

Also, since she references ‘thousands of years of thinking’ about marriage, let’s talk about Abraham and Solomon and their concubines (and multiple wives). Let’s talk about a widow being forced to marry her brother-in-law. Let’s discuss how rape victims are forced to marry their rapists (and how the victim’s father has to pay the rapist). Yes, these are all acceptable (and all found in the Bible, no less) over the course of ‘thousands of years of thinking.’  Yes, I can see how a child raised in a mother/father household – where he only exists because his daddy raped his mommy –  is so much better than a child raised by two men or two women who are devoted to each other and their life together.

Here’s why this is scary. Several times during her opininated rant (which I can easily recognize, as I have long since mastered it), Ms. Palin is essentially offering parenting advice. In general, I hate it when people offer parenting advice in the first place, unless it’s either being sought out, or it’s which legitimately good intentions. Example, stressed mother posts on Facebook, “Kid just won’t go to sleep! I don’t know what to do!” Well-meaning friends offer their own stories of what they’ve done in those situations.  But a single, teenaged mother telling a married man what he should or should not be saying to his children is just disgusting.  Not to mention that it just goes to show what level of comprehension she’s working with when she really thinks that our President was “merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.”

Ideally, yes, fathers do help shape their kid’s worldview. So Sasha and Malia already accept their friends’ families, and their father has only reinforced that this is the correct thing to do. Palin feels that “dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking.” Well, Ms. Palin, I’m pretty sure President Obama has done just that. I hope Levi does the same for your son one day.

The Sanctity of ‘Sanctity’

Let’s take a moment and focus on these definitions, particularly that second one. The ultimate importance. So, let’s play a game called The Ultimate Importance of Marriage. What is the ultimate importance of marriage? Is it not two adults who love each other and who have chosen to join their lives and forge a new life together? Two people who want to commit to one another for the rest of their lives? Because that’s what I always thought it was.

And yet… it’s couples who are of the same sex that want to be married that are trouncing on that?

So Britney Spears and her 55 hour marriage supported the sanctity of marriage? Women in Utah have to wait longer than that to get an abortion.  Kim Kardashian’s 72 days? Most people have to wait longer than that to get full benefits at a new job. Most manicures last longer than the late, great Dennis Hopper’s 1970 marriage to Mamas and Papas singer Michelle Phillips: 8 days.

How about Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman’s five-month marriage? Or Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney:  They met in January 2005. Five months later they were married. Four months later they announced plans for an annulment. Drew Barrymore, whom I adore immensely, was married for a mere 32 days from March to April of 1994.

Movies like What Happens in Vegas, and even in a late ’93 episode of “Blossom,” show us men and women who have never met before getting married and then making a go of it. I’ve never seen What Happens in Vegas, as I don’t care much for Cameron Diaz, so I have no idea what the outcome was (I can only assume they live happily ever after), but I do recall Tony and Shelley becoming a great couple and eventually having a baby. However, we all know it really doesn’t happen like that.

Frankly, I see this as nothing more than blatant abuse of privilege. Us straight folks can just go off and marry whomever we want, whenever we want. It’s our right, damnit! But if the absolute love of your life, the person you’ve sacrificed everything to be with, built a home with, has the same parts as you, you get nothing (unless you’re lucky enough to live in the six states that have common sense and decency).

Sanctity of marriage? What about the sanctity of human rights?

President Equality

Let it be marked, today, that President Barack Obama, Barry as call him at our weekend barbecues, has endorsed same-sex marriage.

“I’ve concluded that for me personally, it’s important to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” – President Obama, May 9, 2012.

Naysayers will claim re-election ploy – and maybe it is, who knows? – but even if that is the case, it’s not one he can likely turn around and take back. So, I consider this a win for the United States of America.