[T]he Texas House of Representatives is set to consider a bill that would effectively put a stop to same-sex marriage in Texas, no matter what the Supreme Court rules. The law, which has 89 co-authors, would forbid any public employee from issuing, enforcing or recognizing same-sex marriage licenses…. “We as Texans have a sovereign right to define and regulate marriage,” Republican state Rep. Cecil Bell, the author of the bill, told Talking Points Memo earlier this week. “I don’t believe that this bill puts anyone in a lesser position than what they were in before.”
If you’re gay, unfortunate enough to live in Texas, and, as if those two things weren’t bad enough, are a law enforcement officer, you occupy a very precarious and tenuous position in life. It’s hard enough being any one of those three things, but live all three and it’s unlikely that you’re ever really free to fully relax and be your authentic self. Texas is one of the many states in which you can be fired for being gay, and as the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage approaches, Conservative politicians in the Lone Star State have dialed up the hatred, introducing nearly two dozen anti-gay laws, all of which are designed to legally ensure that gays are second-class citizens with none of the rights and benefits that accrue to “normal” Texans.
Sure, you can take a bullet for us, but don’t get ahead of yourself and start thinking that should mean you get to have actual legal rights….
The story of “Joe,” a sheriff’s deputy in a medium-sized Texas city, is something I find as disheartening as it is heartbreaking. Joe is as human as any other law enforcement officer. He puts his life on the line to protect the citizens of his city each and every day he wears the uniform. If he were to be shot or otherwise injured on duty, his fiancee would have no legal right to visit him in the hospital or have any input on his care. Since same-sex marriage is illegal in Texas, if Joe were killed in the line of duty, his fiancee would be denied death benefits and any resulting insurance payout. He wouldn’t even have a legal right to plan, perhaps even attend, Joe’s funeral.
From where I sit, I’m astonished that a state could be so thoroughly dominated by hatred and prejudice that so much time, energy, effort, and, worst of all, tax dollars could be expended on ensuring that the LGBT community has no legal status or rights whatsoever. Do Texans not believe that gays are people, that they have the same hopes, dreams, and fears they do? Do they not believe that gays are already among them, in most cases deeply closeted because they fear being exposed and suffering potentially significant adverse consequences? And how is it that so many deeply Conservative Christians, many of who want to get government off our backs, think nothing of inserting government into to private lives of others? How is hating and working to legally marginalize the LGBT community even faintly redolent of Christian love and tolerance? No one’s expecting that you’re going to turn gay, but how can it be so difficult and distasteful to allow others to live honest and authentic lives, to be who they are and live and love as they see fit?
Joe learned about the bill on Monday morning, reading Yahoo News at his desk at work. It had never crossed his mind that Texas might be able to undermine the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage — but if it did, it would certainly put him in a lesser position than the one he has been imagining. He thought about his fiancee, John — about their down payment at the Pelazzio, a Houston wedding venue where they plan to tie the knot in December, about the 150 or so invitations, ready to be mailed, sitting on the dining room table. He thought about his 4-year-old daughter, who calls John “dad.” He thought about what would happen if he was harmed in the line of duty — how John wouldn’t be able to visit him in the hospital, or see their daughter again. But he kept his thoughts to himself, and went about his day.
“It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth,” he said. “It frustrates me and angers me to know that there are people that are so closed-minded that they don’t care who is hurt by what they’re doing.”
“People so closed-minded that they don’t care who is hurt.” Say what you will, but there’s nothing Conservative OR Christian about such hateful, insensitive behavior. Classical Conservatism is all about allowing people to live as they choose and getting government out of the business of regulating the private lives of citizens. Jesus Christ never preached against homosexuality or same-sex marriage; He DID preach extensively about the virtues of love, tolerance, and acceptance…qualities Texans are loathe to exercise when it comes to the LGBT community in the midst.
How can those who demand “smaller government” and respect for their religion be so narrow-minded and consumed by hatgred? You can do this when you believe you’re fighting for a cause, that the people adversely impacted aren’t in fact human, but something “less than” and undeserving of equality and fair treatment under the law. You can do this when you believe yourself to be a superior human being because of your more godly, Christian moral code. That there’s nothing even remotely Christian OR godly about operating from a place of hatred and discrimination seems to matter not at all to those who believe they possess the right to force their narrow, hate-driven morality on all.
It’s sad that so many are so threatened by those who simply want what most of us want- to be left alone to live our lives honestly and authentically. Same-sex marriage harms no one. Gay rights aren’t SPECIAL rights; they’re EQUAL rights, which is all the LGBT community has ever asked for- anywhere. Sadly, Texas is a place so thoroughly steeped in hatred and homophobia that many have forgotten what it means to love.
It’s neither my purpose nor intent to paint all Texans with the same brush, but the truth is that they’ve elected the legislators who believe it to be their responsibility to legislate the LGBT community out of existence. The people of Texas have through their votes created an atmosphere that allows their elected representatives to spend large amounts of scarce tax dollars on enforcing hatred and homophobia. They have the power to change the tenor and tone of state government at the ballot box, but they’ve repeatedly declined to do so. While all Texans can’t and shouldn’t be classified as homophobes, they still bear responsibility for the culture of hatred extant in the Lone Star State.
There’s no logical, meaningful reason why Joe and others like him should be forced to live in the closet out of self-preservation. No human being should be denied the right to live life honestly and authentically. There is no “homosexual agenda,” and the LGBT community has no grand master plan to recruit our children and force us to, in the words of Rev. Pat Robertson, “like anal sex.” Every gay person I’ve been fortunate enough to know wants the same things any human being wants: safety, security, the right to live as they choose, and the right to love whom they choose. There’s no demand for special rights, merely the hope for and expectation of equality, to have the same rights that heterosexual Texans see as their due.
It’s easy to hate those you refuse to understand, whose lifestyle and sexuality may disgust you. It’s much harder to look at yourself and recognize what keeps you from showing love and tolerance towards those whose existence has no impact- deleterious or otherwise- upon your own.
They’re people- people who, except for one small part of their humanity, are much the same as you and me. Isn’t it time you allowed them to be who they are?
