Some things come around every four years like leap years. The Olympics, US presidential elections, and the Gay Marriage wedge issue bugger-boo.
I remember in the deluge of election 2004, feeling a nagging frustration that the preoccupation of gay and lesbian Americans over the right to wed might have contributed to George W. Bush gaining his second term. As a heterosexual white male it was easy for me to consider their sexual equality struggle ill-timed. Was I right? Of course not. The quest to legitimize gay unions is doubtless as old as [gay] man and has been gathering steam in modern times just as its foes are running out of excuses. In America religious bigots against gay unions, abetted by insurance companies who don’t want to pay partner benerfits, catch their wind ON ELECTION YEARS apparently, and stage their outcry before November elections, whether the candidates at hand are divided on the issue or not.
I’m all for gay marraige rights as well. It’s overdue. I’m not sure how much I’d accredit nationally to religious bigotry – excepting what Bush has done to religious intolerance in the name of his own religious beliefs. Otherwise I’d also add as opponents to gay rights: sexual insecurity, including as your label shows, homophobia – as well as a more immediate concern by many per different wars, from Iraq to ecology and education. And of course, number one: ignorance.
It’s sad how much progress gets offset by war and/or a bad president, but that doesn’t mean that gays don’t have religion or should be made to feel hypocritical in generalizing their beliefs as non-religious simply because of their sexuality. In fact – that’s the very ignorance that divides the concern: stereotyping.
Gay rights are more important than trifling about the color of the stop lights – which certainly IS a form of bigotry and/or indifference. Let the lovers be – to their own beliefs. Or is free-willed love the enemy now?
Mayans unite – there’s a virgin in our midst.