Saturday, February 15, 2014

Traditional Marriage, A History Lesson & The Brave New World



And my state has been drug, fighting and screaming into the 21st century. This, only four months after we fortuitously failed to elect a governor who spoke of making ALL forms of sodomy a crime. (That treat you gave him being such a good boyfriend / husband? It theoretically could have landed both of you in jail.) If you listen carefully you can already hear the conservatives screaming about how this will lead to a rise in pedophilia and people marrying their pets. You know, just like when the arrest of a Virginia couple for breaking Commonwealth law ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court, resulting in a ruling allowing interracial marriage across the country. Remember the huge increase in human - feline marriage applications after that? No? That’s because it didn't happen. Those proclaiming that they're trying to 'protect the sanctity' of traditional marriage need to sit down with their third wife and look it up. Grab your closest Bible. If you marry someone outside of your own faith you are not in a 'traditional marriage'. Virgin girls are supposed to be taken as spoils of war and submit sexually to their new 'owners'. Nope, not military policy anymore. If a woman is raped she is to marry her rapist, but to be fair, the rapist must pay the girl's father fifty sheckels, estimated to be about $12.50, for the loss of his ‘property’. Don’t forget the polygamy, the kings with hundreds of concubines and my personal favorite, the part where a widow without a son was required to marry her brother in law and, of course, submit to him sexually. Many of my religious friends will tell me that those laws ‘don’t count’, how everything changed when Jesus showed up on the scene. Jesus had something to say about those old laws that he allegedly got rid of. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB) So there are two ways of looking at this. Either there has never really been a true ‘traditional marriage’, or we, as people, have been changing it all along, as our society expands and evolves and we learn to respect other people, cultures and genders. I’m married to a woman because I’m straight. It’s my second marriage. Along with myself and their mother, my children are lucky enough to have a stepmother and a step-fiance’ who love them like crazy. I also have friends who are gay and  bi. Some of them would love to get married. Would that hurt or destroy my marriage? Actually it would strengthen it. Why? Because it would bring more love into this world. Look around you. What do you see? Darkness, sadness, hate. And we’re trying to deny people a way to strengthen the bonds of their love? There are many ‘traditional’ things that are antiquated and whose time is long past. Slavery, abuse of people by those in power, killing in the name of God. Love is a message that has been spoken, taught and preached throughout recorded history. Instead of fighting over love, instead of fighting about those who love, it’s time to simply allow people to love. All men, all people, were created equal. Let’s simply accept that and move on.

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