A Wedding Invitation

Nothing else can get the really religious side all fired up, aside from the sanctity of Christmas, like the idea of gay marriage. Newsweek magazine has done an excellent article on the topic. They point out how the bible does not even define what the majority like to call traditional marriage. How it has been bastardized and screwed around with, homogenized if you will, to make it fit their idea of marriage as a traditional bastion between a man and a woman.

"Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so."

The article does a great job of pointing out how the scriptural persons and laws were nothing like folks like to paint them out to be. They use a broad brush to make it appear that all the people in the stories were just good men who had a wife and a family when in reality many were polygamous, mean and not of good character.

Many of us get married because we intend to spend the rest of our lives with someone that we love. Religion does not nor never did enter in to the situation. Just that law requires that someone marry you, so usually you get a religious person or go to City Hall. So, what is the big argument against gay marriage? I don't see why they should be denied the same rights that I have. If they are with a loving partner that they intend to be with and want to get married, why shouldn't they be able to do so. Those who say that the bible dictates thusly are incorrect. It has been re-written and homogenized so thoroughly that people constantly use that as a quote that marriage is between one man and one woman, but read the article. Nowhere does the book actually make that particular statement! Religious folks just like to trot it out and claim that it does. Maybe the version that their church prints or buys does. It is simply the tradition that they do not want to see changed.

"In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call "the traditional family" are scarcely to be found."

There really is no such thing as a "traditional family" or "traditional values". No matter who you talk to everyone has their own ideas of what a family is and means. When I was in college I took a class entitled,"Families and Other Intimate Lifestyles" which was a really good class. There are very few of us that grow up in or under anything that would be called traditional. Whether it be with your birth parents, one or both of them, some sort of dysfunction is what is more the norm. Those who continue to wave the banner and scream about what is a traditional family & the values of such make me want to scream. Those are the folks that yearn for the TV version of Ozzie & Harriet or the Cleaver family.

It is about time that this issue was settled and marriage was open to all and we moved on to the more important issues affecting us and the rest of the world. Unemployment,war, hunger and medical care to name a few. Let those who wish to marry sign up for their gift registries and let's move on. Besides who doesn't love a good wedding reception! I'll meet ya at the open bar!