Up until yesterday, I was at a crossroads personally, about Obama's position on gay rights. On the one hand, the man is everything we could ask for in a candidate; strong, fair, open-minded and most of all visionary with a huge desire to put this country back on the right track. On the other hand, he doesn't support same-sex marriage because of his Christian upbringing...then I reread this exceprt (I'd already read it in his book once, but my memory isn' the best sometimes...)
"For many practicing Christians, the same inability to compromise may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith withoutcivil penalty.
All too often I have sat in a church and heard a pastor use gay bashing as a cheap parlor trick -- "It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" he will shout, usually when the sermon is not going so well. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common in every culture. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex -- nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps I am sensitive on this issue because I have seen the pain my own carelessness has caused. Before my election, in the middle of my debates with Mr. Keyes, I received a phone message from one of my stronger supporters. She was a small-business owner, amother, and a thoughtful, generous person. She was also a lesbian who had lived in a monogamous relationship with her partner for the last decade. She knew when she decided to support me that I was opposed to same-sex marriage, and she had heard me argue that, in the absence of any meaningful consensus, the heightened focus on marriage was a distraction from other, more attainable measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. Her phone message in this instance had been prompted by a radio interview in which I had referenced my religious traditions in explaining my position on the issue. She told me that she had been hurt by my remarks; she felt that by bringing religioninto the equation, I was suggesting that she, and others like her, were somehow bad people. I felt bad, and told her so in a return call. As I spoke to her I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homosexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgement inflicts pain on good people -- people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ's message than thosewho condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided, just as I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have beeninfected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian. I believe they make me human, limited in my understandings of God's purpose and therefore prone to sin. When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations -- whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion."
This quote gives me new hope. I keep running over the ideas in my mind that no matter what we call it, 'Marriage," "Civil Union," "Legal Union" or anything else, as long as GLBT Americans and their partners eventually end up able to legally be joined to their partner with inclusive rights as a hetero couple "married" in a church, then what does it matter what it is called or how we get there.
I have long been a vocal proponent of gay marriage, I think, whether you agree with me or not, that it holds exactly the same amount of significance that racially mixed marriages did in the 60's and 70's. It is a civil rights issue no matter how you look at it and I wasn't one to waver on my stance. My best friend should be able to marry his partner and they should be able to file their taxes jointly and receive ALL the same benefits my husband and I do, but is NOW the time to fight that fight?
When you look at the fiasco that "W.tf" has put us in at this point, I think you have to weight the significance of this fight against getting someone in office that possesses a sense of fairness and justice first. Maybe now is the time for change of leadership and maybe later is the time to fight for same-sex legal unions.
~~~Mary
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