(no subject)
As a final note to my entry a few days ago, what is quite possibly the single most irritating thing about the entire controversy over gay marriage isn't so much the justification of opinions by using what God supposedly deems right or wrong, it isn't so much the open intolerance towards gay people that many people exhibit, and it isn't so much that people aren't open to other lifestyles.
Look at New Jersey. A few weeks ago, they finally ruled that gay and lesbian people have the same rights as everyone else, including the right to marriage... but that the word they're going to refer to that ceremony and legal right as is still pending. Six months is set aside to not only decide if a ban will be passed or not, but that's also six months in order to decide if "marriage" can be tacked onto the right that courts have finally granted them.
What bugs the ever-loving, God-fearing, head--->desk-inducing FUCK out of me is that people get hung up on one word.
Imagine if in 1920, women finally received the long-fought for and wholly deserved right to vote, but men got hung up on actually calling it "voting" and decided instead to call it a "formal notification of interests."
Imagine if when Abraham Lincoln finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and Congress later finally passed the 13th and 14th Amendments guaranteeing that black men and slaves were legally guaranteed all of their civil rights due to them as Americans, but politicians got hung up on calling it "freedom" or "abolition" and decided instead to call it a "disclosure of tax-liability."
Imagine if when Germany issued its formal apology to the world and the Jewish community for the atrocities it committed during the Holocaust, that the mensch got hung up on actually calling it an "apology" and decided instead to call it "PMS."
So, do imagine the ridiculousness, the idiocy, the petty-minded attitude it takes to finally grant the gay community their right to marriage, but to get so hung up on calling it "marriage" that it's decided to instead call it a "civil union".
Words carry weight and mean a lot to all of us, especially when one group of us had it before someone else budged into the party. Marriage is not the sacred word it's made out to be, and allowing such a word's meaning to be expanded does not mean, by any stretch of the rational, intelligent, logical imagination, that a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman will suddenly bring about the ravaging or morals and the start of polygamy, cross-species marriages, or attempts for Bob to marry his bowl of potato salad.
There are deeper things at play here, and it most certainly is not because of one inocuous eight-lettered word. I would call it "deep-seated resentment or fear of change," but someone people might get hung up on that and decide instead to call it "tradition."
Look at New Jersey. A few weeks ago, they finally ruled that gay and lesbian people have the same rights as everyone else, including the right to marriage... but that the word they're going to refer to that ceremony and legal right as is still pending. Six months is set aside to not only decide if a ban will be passed or not, but that's also six months in order to decide if "marriage" can be tacked onto the right that courts have finally granted them.
What bugs the ever-loving, God-fearing, head--->desk-inducing FUCK out of me is that people get hung up on one word.
Imagine if in 1920, women finally received the long-fought for and wholly deserved right to vote, but men got hung up on actually calling it "voting" and decided instead to call it a "formal notification of interests."
Imagine if when Abraham Lincoln finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and Congress later finally passed the 13th and 14th Amendments guaranteeing that black men and slaves were legally guaranteed all of their civil rights due to them as Americans, but politicians got hung up on calling it "freedom" or "abolition" and decided instead to call it a "disclosure of tax-liability."
Imagine if when Germany issued its formal apology to the world and the Jewish community for the atrocities it committed during the Holocaust, that the mensch got hung up on actually calling it an "apology" and decided instead to call it "PMS."
So, do imagine the ridiculousness, the idiocy, the petty-minded attitude it takes to finally grant the gay community their right to marriage, but to get so hung up on calling it "marriage" that it's decided to instead call it a "civil union".
Words carry weight and mean a lot to all of us, especially when one group of us had it before someone else budged into the party. Marriage is not the sacred word it's made out to be, and allowing such a word's meaning to be expanded does not mean, by any stretch of the rational, intelligent, logical imagination, that a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman will suddenly bring about the ravaging or morals and the start of polygamy, cross-species marriages, or attempts for Bob to marry his bowl of potato salad.
There are deeper things at play here, and it most certainly is not because of one inocuous eight-lettered word. I would call it "deep-seated resentment or fear of change," but someone people might get hung up on that and decide instead to call it "tradition."