Hey dudes,
Thanks for indulging my little mental break. Thanks for checking back, to those of you who are still here. I wrote a draft of this post last weekend and after watching the Daily Show last night, almost scrapped the whole thing. In addition to covering the questions I have here, and discussing them with William Bennett, Jon Stewart also pointed out that the proposed same sex marriage ban constitutional amendment has no chance of passing... which makes the whole idea of dragging the issue out around election time again even more ridiculous, but I've got to get this off my chest and I've been gone for so long that I figured I owed my fans (or, at least those who tolerate me) a real rambler like this one. So here goes...
A friend of mine, an old college roommate, sent me a picture of an unmarked grave. At the top of the forwarded message was this comment: "Luth, don't even try to spin this one." In the message it said that this grave was that of Casey Sheehan. It went on to say that in three years since Casey's death in Iraq, his mom, Cindy Sheehan, "hadn't bothered" to get a stone, even the free one the Deptartment of Defense provides, to mark her son's grave. As proof that this was out of pure neglect, the message contained another picture of Cindy Sheehan hugging the reverend Jesse Jackson, and smiling.
I suggested that the opportunistic photos, and the assumption that Mrs. Sheehan had simply neglected her son's grave might be a little off base and required no further spin on my part. I congratulated my friend on successfully exploiting this mother's loss to his own political purposes (the definition of "spin") and hoped, for his sake, that he never run out of moms who have lost their sons to use for his purposes.
I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a child, but I suspect Mrs. Sheehan simply wants answers. Like, why did her son have to die in Iraq? How has his death there made life in America any better for anyone? What threat from Iraq is now alleviated because of her son's, and her own sacrifice? I don't want to speak for her (as the message from my friend claimed to) but I suspect these are the questions to which she hasn't received a satisfactory answer. In reply to this suggestion my friend responded:
"Freedom."
My friend (And I'm not being facetious or sarcastic when I call him that, he has, or had, a heart of gold. I can't explain his heartless politics!) explained that Casey Sheehan was free to join the military or not. I didn't quite follow the logic of this answer and so asked my friend to explain, specifically, what he meant by "freedom." Was it the freedom Mrs. Sheehan had to ask about her son's death? The freedom, and even the responsibility as citizens, that Teddy Roosevelt suggested we use to question our leadership? I'm just not making the connection. What does Iraq have to do with Americans' freedom? Is it the freedom to have our Google searches or our phone calls monitored? As I suspect about Cindy Sheehan, I'm just not satisfied that these abstract answers like "mission accomplished" or "fighting terror" or "defending freedom" have sufficient connections to specific questions to justify the loss of a son's life, let alone 2,000 American lives and 30,000 other lives.
And now, with the mid-term elections bringing out the issues that only come out for campaigns, we are reminded that we have lost more freedom than we've gained since this war, and this presidential administration have begun.
In his weekly radio address President Bush said, “In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives.” That, apparently, is what people mean when they believe Bush supports freedom, but, of course, there’s more.
“And in a free society, decisions about such a fundamental social institution as marriage should be made by the people, not by the courts.”
Strange language from a guy whose election, his “mandate from the people,” was decided by the courts, but that’s another story. On the surface, Bush’s comments sound freedom-friendly. Sure, the people should have the right to choose how to live their lives, but that’s clearly not what Bush has in mind with these comments. Considering the constitutional amendment Bush supports through these comments, the comments themselves are beyond hypocritical, they’re flat our oxymoronic.
Let me explain: You see, if people truly had a choice in the matter to which these comments apply, they could marry whomever they choose. Bush, however, is arguing for a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AGAINST such freedom. Instead, he wants to limit the choice people have in who they marry. In fact, in supporting a constitutional amendment, he wants to take away state's rights in determining their own marriage laws. So how, exactly, does taking away individual and state's rights translate into freedom?!
The president's own language begs to be defined as oxymoronic. “Decisions should be made by the people, not by the courts,” Bush says, but what he really means is, decisions should be made by Congress, not the people. He refers to marriage as a “fundamental social institution,” but then intends to “socialize” only his definition of marriage by having congress codify his narrow view of what this “social” institution is. He apparently thinks “social” means “that which I favor.” To me, this sounds more dictatorial than freedom-friendly.
Now, before you go crying that your religion says this or that regarding this particular “social issue,” keep in mind that no one’s trying to tell you what your church can or can’t do. No one’s trying to take away your religious definition of marriage. Bush is only trying to take away someone else’s definition of marriage. We’re talking a constitutional amendment here. It has nothing to do with any church. It only has to do with a LEGAL definition of marriage. If you keep church out of it, marriage is nothing more than a legal contract between two individuals. It’s even taxed! Some have called it the “marriage penalty,” which is another Republican definition – the idea that tax = penalty. Republicans, with this definition, seem to suggest that the public infrastructure built and maintained with tax funds, that allows business to operate, is somehow free… that paying taxes to support that is somehow a penalty. They seem to forget that the roads, power grids, sanitation systems and services upon which businesses rely, must be paid for and are one the core functions of government. I guess Republicans believe only Democrats should pay for that stuff?! But I digress…
Back to the legal contract status of marriage and the FACT that that’s all marriage means outside of a church. Would you seek a constitutional amendment to prevent gay interior decorators from opening a business together? How about gay fashion designers? (pardon the stereotypes, but I hope they point out just how ridiculous this argument really is) Seeking to ban gay marriage, in pure legal terms, is just as discriminatory. It has nothing to do with “the backbone of the country.” It has nothing to do with “moral values” or “the institution of family.”
The only connection between those issues and this amendment is the usurping of the national dialogue by the conservative right and Bush’s desire to please them around election time regardless of what society actually wants, regardless of what’s fair, and regardless of the true values on which this nation was founded. (Hint: you won’t find those values on the 700 Club)
Churches are still free to marry or deny marriage to whomever they choose. All Americans are free to NOT marry someone of the same sex if they desire. This amendment isn’t about protecting any freedom. It’s plainly and simply about limiting freedom. Banning gay marriages won’t reduce the 50% failure rate of straight marriages – a shadowy number lying beneath the silly notion that straight marriage is some grand institution. In fact, in his radio address, Bush seemed to indicate the connection between “family values” and this grand institution.
Considering the fairly recent public acceptance of homosexuality in our society, I'd say being a little more lenient in terms of what constitutes a family is worth a shot. Between the 50% divorce rate and the rapid decline, as conservatives constantly remind us during campaigns, of our values, it appears as though the traditional definition of family, at least to the extent that it is the backbone of our society, isn't working! Where we are, in terms of moral values, is the result of the traditional, heterosexual family type being accepted as the standard for the last 150 years. As Dr. Phil says, "how's that workin' for ya?"
So how is this latest attempt at denying yet another freedom supposed to help us? What is it we're gaining by giving up yet another individual right and having bigger government forced upon us by special interest groups who form the moral minority? And how, exactly, does the party of smaller government reconcile this blatant effort toward bigger government? I need some help with this one.
Forgive me, and forgive Cindy Sheehan for having some pretty high expectations for the answers to our questions. No, strike that. I make no apologies. We should have high expectations for the answers to questions that justify the loss of human life and huge non-human resources. When it comes to altering the oldest living, and by that I mean, most effective government document in existence, simply to appease either the tiny fraction of people who feel threatened by gay marriage, or the even tinier fraction of people who might be allowed to get married if the ban fails, we should have better answers.
PS - the Rob Cordry sketch comparing gay marriage to prohibition is something to think about. Nothing makes an issue more attractive than banning it. Perhaps those who seek to ban gay marriage secretly would like to see it become more attractive??
