Tomorrow, there is a vote that means a lot to a lot of us. I am in a relationship with my fiance, who is transgendered, and I need to get any kind of victory that I can to keep her here in this country. She has been here for about 15 years now after some horrible treatment involving sexual abuse and community mistreatment during her youth led her here. They didn't really understand how to deal with her being born a boy, but feminine and identifying as a girl. It led to abuse and judgment in many of her dealings while in her home of Mexico.
I wrote this after a discussion with a coworker where they made many of these arguments against me ever having the right to marry the girl I love. I was outraged, but because of policies that don't really protect my position as LGBT (dating a transgendered girl), I couldn't do a lot in retaliation. I wrote this then, and I think it is an appropriate time to let others read my thoughts considering tomorrow's significance. It would be a small victory compared to what I need, but a great victory nonetheless.
The demonization of the LGBT community has been happening for years, but the ideas are still in use today. It stood strong in ideas fueled by prejudice, like in the 80s with the belief that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease only gotten by homosexuals. Science goes against this and it is no longer so widely believed by anyone other than the ignorant, but it is a clear example of a large portion of the population seeing evil or sickness when seeing LGBT. In the 90s the term gay became used as a synonym for stupid in the vernacular of the youth. In the 2000s it is still going strong with the debate over same-sex marriage
I will first start with the origin of this behavior and its beliefs. That origin is hatred. Those who discriminate can say that they don't hold outright hatred for same-sex couples, but they may need to reconsider what the term means. The term is an irrational fear from a lack of understanding or perceived danger that causes irrational behavior that is often justified with arguments created around the fear. My own mother has hatred of moths (and same sex relationships sadly enough). Does this mean that she starts crusades against them? No, but it means that every time she is reminded of their presence, her feelings that she holds towards most other creatures go out the window. Just like the fear of same-sex marriage, her fear is irrational and has no basis on any realistic result that can come from having them live happily amongst her. Also, like the fear of same-sex couples marrying, it is hard to get past the fear to the rational mind of the person who is in a behavioral pattern of hate. There is perceived wrong that is being done by having the object of the hate anywhere near the person that is frozen from progress by fear. Ultimately, the goal of the person with this particular type of fear is extermination or banishment of the perceived threat. This is what we see here, but people attempt to accomplish this goal by pushing their agendas and fears onto others, including their children. This is why this form of hate has become so prevalent, and it is why, like the fear of African Americans receiving equal rights in our nation's history, it usually requires government assistance to be stamped out.
Continued below.
Here are a few of the misconceptions and why they are not based on reason, but exclusion.
There is a commonly spoken belief held by large portions of society that a marriage between two people of the same sex is equal to inter-species marriage. This is another of these widely held beliefs that goes unchecked due to its convenience for a population that is unwilling to accept. The fact is that a cat can not recite vows, express consent, or sign a marriage certificate, so why throw this image out there when speaking of two consenting adults wishing to be married within a free society? The argument that LGBTs are inhuman is a clear and concise message that hate is allowed when the majority feels against what is being proposed, so it is largely allowed to stand without a large challenge, but Civil Rights are supposed to stand in the way of bigoted thinking like this
It has even been said in one argument that a same-sex union is a slippery slope to allowing pedophiles to marry underage people (the ones that they are attracted to), but this is a flawed logic as well. Marriage can only be between two consenting adults unless authorized by parents, but that is law, even for today's society. Consent can not be given by a minor, so the argument is once again invalid and based on hate.
The argument that marriage is not a union, but a biological function that means that two people have decided to have it recognized that they wish to start a family is a farce as well. Who is to say that a woman having gone through menopause is not allowed to marry? or that a man with impotence, or anyone who is for another reason sterile? The fact is that people have been starting families for longer than marriage has been recognized and that marriage is just a term for a ritual that is used to show an ownership of each other to society and share in the rights of one another (citizenship in some instances, insurance, being allowed to visit at the hospital, the same rights of wives and husbands for our military), including property ownership. These are the concepts that guide marriage in legislature, not biology, otherwise we should have to hand out licenses to engage in sex. Marriage in a judicial sense is the sharing of property between two people who are in love so that they are recognized as one entity in taxation and property ownership. This has nothing to do with biology. This is like putting in the law that sex should not be attempted without the intent of bearing children, as some fundamentalist religions believe. This is a ludicrous concept because it is simply another way of trying to justify bigotry against a community that the majority don't identify as.
The religious argument that marriage is a sacrament granted by God is a failing argument because marriage as recognized by a government is a contract, not a religious rite. It can be tied to religion, but atheists are allowed to marry the same as those who believe in a deity. That makes it a contract to live your life for another person and share property and responsibility to pay taxes, with them as your counterpart in life. This is what is recognized by the government and if it were about religion, that would not be allowed under the separation of church and state. This was promised by Thomas Jefferson and is outlined in the First Amendment. This is what protects the rights of all people to practice their beliefs in their lives with the same rights as anyone else without the government promoting the beliefs of any religion over a person's beliefs. To continue to fail to give rights that favor the rights of the people instead of the rules of any religion is a failure to live up to the promises set forth by the forefathers. Just because the majority is one faith doesn't mean that their faith should be made into laws that control the population. They have the right to practice, but they are not supposed to be able to make laws that are based on their religion. To continue to justify laws with the values of a particular faith is not American. We are a nation made up of people with many faiths, but our laws are supposed to be separated by a wall from religion so that all people are truly treated equally. As it stands, we are operating as a church disguised as a nation with inhabitants that, despite not believing like the primary faith, are housed within and taxed. America is supposed to be founded under laws that favor no person over another and this must be rectified. The founders were largely deists and wrote laws out as deists who recognized no faith in their writings.
The next argument that is often heard is that it harms children who won't understand it. The fact is that some of the children would feel validation of who they are, and how they feel, by seeing that they can be accepted by society as who they are. The LGBT community in general is forced into alienation by the government's unwillingness to recognize their rights as equal to those of straight citizens. This causes the bullies to feel justification for their actions and those who are in the LGBT community to feel that the world views them as inferior. This acceptance could do so much more good than teaching the children that there is something wrong with them if they feel that they are LGBT or that their lives have less promise and potential. It is a taught behavior to make children feel like LGBTs are not equals that is the same as teaching your children to be racists. It is to teach them that those who are different than them are less than them. This is not to mention that homosexual relationships put no more pressure on a child to be homosexual than straight relationships do to make a child heterosexual. If what type of relationship the people who raised you engaged in was that big of a reason for the development of a particular sexual orientation, then there would be no LGBT community. This is why the arguments against same-sex marriages once again goes into exclusion instead of facts or the rights that were promised to all of us.
The argument that is presented that it makes a mockery of the institution of marriage is another fallacy that finds its way into the debate. This idea is refuted by the fact that 50% of all marriages end in divorce as it is. The institution is not standing strong by heterosexual couples who fail to take it seriously unless it is when discussing whether someone they do not identify with is trying to gain equal rights to do it. The fact that many of these same people who argue that it has this sanctity that would be ruined by allowing same-sex couples to have equal rights are making a mockery of it with the way that they live their lives makes this a pointless and invalid argument. It is hypocrisy to state that a marriage between a same-sex couple that loves one another makes a heterosexual marriage between two people that love each other any less important. There is no reason to say that it makes a mockery for two consenting adults to have the same rights because they are different than the majority. I would dare to say that it could only do good to the institution of marriage to have couples getting married who understand what it means, and the LGBT community has felt the exclusion from marriage that has shown us how valuable it is. Freedom can best be appreciated by those who have never had it.
I have even heard it mentioned that Civil Rights are just the flavor of the day for people to use the system to bring us out from under our principles. This concept is anti-American and goes against the foundation of what we have stood for for all of these years. We have worked so hard to earn equal rights for all, but it seems that a lot of people dropped the fight because the majority have begun to enjoy the exclusion of others from their fraternity of freedom as Americans. Those who are not oppressed often follow the selfish belief that they were given their rights as divine rights for being "right". For this reason, I ask “what would you do if your right to worship was being denied since your religion was no longer in favor by a large enough group?” Would you stand up and fight for your rights? Would it be fair that you were being oppressed and your rights were being trampled on? The example I would use is if someone used the freedom of religion, but the government dictated which religion a family got at random. Imagine you got something you were completely averse to. I don't think that it would be any more fair to you than this is to the LGBT community. The public that is reaping the benefits of the law as it is written will always stand in the path of progress, but without people who are willing to stand up against them, we will never get anywhere. Civil rights have had to be forced upon the intolerant in the past, and, if the right thing is done, it will happen again.
In history, the world operated under different assumptions that women were less than men and didn't deserve the same rights, but that was a principle that was recognized after years of fighting and those rights were given. At one point it was a widely accepted belief that African Americans were property and not people, but ultimately, America came to its senses and recognized them as equals (or at least the decent people did). There had to be significant struggle for long periods of time to earn rights, but the government has stepped up and done the right thing each of these times... even when it wasn't popular. Why stand down now? This is a battle for the rights of a sizable population of Americans that has been pushed away from the agenda because it would be unpopular to do the right thing. The beliefs of the public during the time that segregation was being abolished were just as hate filled as any, but the government understood that its place was not to be an echo for the majority, but rather a voice for the minority that was struggling to gain the same rights as everyone else.
Large portions of society feel that to prevent same-sex couples from marrying, they are preventing perversion from happening in their society. This idea is completely baseless. To stop any couple from marrying doesn't prevent perverse things from happening. As a matter of fact, the LGBT community, and the community at large, would actually be helped along significantly by marriage as a means of preventing disease. What are the values that our society tries to push for our youth? We push waiting until marriage for sex, but for the LGBT community, there is no hope of marriage under your current restrictions. This leads to less of a reason to hold off for LGBT couples. Without a law that allows the same possibilities, you are actually causing more harm to your precious heterosexual society when those bisexual individuals go back into the straight market. You also cause higher outbreak numbers in the entire American society. With this in mind, you are causing it to be more sexual than it would be if you allowed marriage. Many homosexuals actually hold similar values to heterosexuals, but understand that their marriage rights are currently restricted, so it creates a conflict that leads to more sex in the community than would otherwise happen. The issue with perception is also that every time a same-sex couple is holding hands or kissing, it is deemed an offense while a heterosexual couple doing the same is not. Considering the behavior of straight couples is generally more out in the open and unrestricted, this is a hypocritical stance that needs to be remedied through people moving past their own fears. This was once the belief of many when they saw an interracial couple in the same situation, so it needs to be dealt with in the same manner.
The idea that Civil Rights should be up to a vote is one that is widely held by the general population due to the knowledge that there are, or according to Gallup polls, were more of them on the side of intolerance, but if we operated by that logic, we would not truly ever accomplish liberty in this nation. We would always be saying one thing, but doing another. That a politician can get away with mocking the idea of same-sex marriage as though it was inter-species marriage is unforgivable, but this is widely accepted by the general population for the purposes of keeping others down who are not like them. The stance that is being made is that “I would love to help you, but until you become like me, I can't do it in good conscience.” That just can't stand in a country that is founded on freedom. We are not talking about cockroaches owning houses, we are talking about consenting adults living in this country getting their union that is made of love recognized by the nation. Many of these people fight and die for the country, but the country is unwilling to stand up and say that it has been wrong to oppress them in their own homeland for all of these years. When proud Americans are told that they are second class citizens by virtue of their sexual orientation, it is a failure on the part of America. I ask that for once, we stand on this issue and follow the same laws on Civil Rights that have stood for everything else and apply them to this. Religion doesn't belong in legislature. Some of it got thrown on currency and in a pledge in 1956, but this nation stands on the belief that people have the right to be themselves and receive equal treatment for it, not on the beliefs of any faith, but the beliefs of equality in mankind. Stand today against hatred and bigotry. Stand today for what is right. Stand today for Civil Rights like our nation has in the past. Stand and make a positive difference. Let legislature give equal rights to all. Be the voice of the minority that is being oppressed in stead of a tool of the majority to keep minorities down. We need to fight for these rights until our government requires that same-sex marriages be recognized in the USA as a Federal law.
If we lose tomorrow on Amendment One, so be it, but I will fight from now until I die for this cause. Win or lose, right is right.
P.S. This is my first diary, so if I am doing something wrong, let me know.
8:20 PM PT: I just want to thank everyone for the support. I am glad to be on DailyKos. The people here are great and generally like-minded. Sometimes in my little existence, it feels like I am boxed in by the opposition (my own mother, whom I still love and overlook the judgment of, often says I am not worthy of certain rights and that I am part of a change that makes her ashamed of the world).
This is truly a great place that has more heart than anywhere else I have seen.
Tue May 08, 2012 at 6:45 AM PT: It shouldn't make me so angry, but looking at the signs really made me angry at my little town. Each one you drive by just feels like someone is pushing themselves as more worthy of fair treatment than others. By the time I got to where I was supposed to vote, it was boiling over. When someone said, "vote for the marriage amendment", it was all I could do to simply say, "I'm good" and not launch into why their justification for denying the rights of others was just the same as any bigoted law aimed at oppression over history.
I hope they lose SO BAD! The arrogance drives that point home.