Anti-gay Benham brothers express their concern that gay people are under the spell of Satan http://t.co/e7y3Qk9Fpg
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 12, 2015
MONTGOMERY (The Borowitz Report)—A week of turmoil in Alabama culminated on Friday with the United States ordering the Southern state to grow up. After a week in which Alabama exhibited various displays of childishness—including kicking, screaming, stamping its feet, and threatening to hold its breath—the United States decided to take the extraordinary action of telling the hundred-and-ninety-five-year-old state to act its age.
Perhaps I’m being a bit overly sensitive here, but it certainly does seem as if a whole lot of people on the far right side of the ideological spectrum spend an awful lot of time thinking about what others do behind closed doors. Many of these folks are the same ones who actively agitate for small government and for the idea of getting government “off the backs” of the middle class. Despite this, they’d use the power of government to deny a minority class of citizens the same rights they take for granted. They’d do this despite expecting this class to bear the same tax burden as any other segment of society.
What I can’t wrap my head around is why anyone who believes in small government would believe that government could and should be used to curtail the rights of those whose lifestyle and sexuality they find abhorrent. Are they really about “small government,” or is it really just about “government small enough to enforce a narrow, hate-centric agenda?”
I’m not gay, but that’s immaterial to this discussion, as it should be for everyone who believes they have the right to determine which rights the LGBT community is allowed and which are denied them. I’m profoundly ambivalent to homosexuality, only because that’s not how I’m wired. When I look at a person, I don’t see “gay” or “straight.” I see a human being trying to navigate their way through life, as all of us are. That they’ve made a different choice when it comes to sexuality and how they express it is a right due them in a free society.
When it comes to being wrong about civil rights, Alabama is like shampoo: The last step is always REPEAT #ALMarriage http://t.co/PYffFcEwfN
— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) February 9, 2015
Religious Conservatives and those on the Rabid Right are quick to demand that their rights be respected. Speaking out against them tends to be interpreted as taking away their “right” to take away the rights of those they judge and find wanting. In so doing, these folks reveal far more about themselves than anything else, and I really have to wonder what they’re so afraid of. Why the caterwauling about the “Homosexual Agenda?” Why is Roy Moore considered a Very Serious Person when he blathers on about his fear that same-sex marriage will lead to “father-daughter marriage?” Why is Rick Santorum given airtime when he orates at some considerable length about the threat of same-sex marriage leading to “man on dog sex?”
The truth is that none of this matters. If you’re unalterably opposed to same-sex marriage, there’s a view simple solution available to you: Don’t marry someone with the same plumbing. Problem solved, eh? You absolutely have the right to feel and do as you wish when it comes to issues surrounding your own sexuality…but that’s where it ends. You have NO right to project your ignorance and prejudice on those who lifestyle and/or sexuality happens not to mesh with your own.
This is what freedom is about- the right and ability to think, believe, live, and/or love (or not) as you see fit. YOU are in charge of YOU, but that’s where your moral authority begins and ends. You have no right- God-given or otherwise- to force your beliefs and prejudices on those who happen not to share them. Your world view, religion, and philosophy are of no value to anyone but yourself…so how could you possibly be arrogant enough to believe you have the right to deny to others what you demand for yourself (and take for granted)?
Mat Staver says that gay rights laws harm children and homosexuality is "very deadly and damaging" http://t.co/ZqiTAmVdBH
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 13, 2015
Those on the Rabid Right can bleat all they want about the injustice and sinfulness of it all. That’s their right under the 1st Amendment…but that’s where it ends. No one gets to determine how someone else may think, believe, live, and/or love. Nor is there a right to claim persecution when society rejects your self-perceived right to take away the rights of others…or, even worse, put them to a majority vote?
On this Valentine’s Day, I’d like to think that we’ve evolved enough to recognize that love isn’t one-size-fits-all. Love is not a commodity than can be quantified and regulated. Love is different for each of us, and there’s no justification for attempting to regulate or outlaw the love two people choose to share. Society has an interest in healthy, committed, long-term relationships…whatever form they may take.
In the final analysis, it really isn’t important whom or how you love; it’s important only that you DO love…because without that, life would be pretty dreary. It saddens me that so many seem so unable to recognize that simple truth.
