Liberal House at the Fair - Part Two

As I mentioned in "Liberal House at the Fair - Part One," I had a chance to sit at the Democratic Party booth at our local county fair a couple of weeks ago. If you didn't read "Liberal House at the Fair - Part One," then there must be something wrong with you. Rectify the situation immediately by going back and reading "Liberal House at the Fair - Part One,” and then come back and finish up this post. Don't worry; I'll wait. In fact, why don't you just go back and read all of my blog posts from the beginning so that you won't have to pay for the book when it comes out.

So now that they're gone, here's what happened. 

The day that I was at the fair, August 1st, was the day that the new Minnesota marriage equality law went into effect. As you can imagine, the whole state was just falling apart piece by piece, and rampant heterosexual divorce was going on at an alarming rate. 

In the midst of this, an elderly gentleman walked up to the booth and motioned at the "John Ward for State Representative" literature on our table. John Ward is our current State Representative, and despite the fact that the majority of his constituency was against it, he voted "yes" on marriage equality.  A move that may very well cost him his office.

Him: "Ward really missed the boat on this one!"

Me: "What was that? Missed the boat on what?"

Him: "Oh, you know, it has something to do with that thing going on today."

Me: "You mean gay marriage?"

Him: "Yup. You guys really missed the boat on that one."

Me: "Well, I'm still married to my husband. And I'm guessing most other straight people are too."

Him: "Straight?"

Me: "You know, people who aren't gay."

Him: "Well I don't see any of them gay people being able to have babies."

Me: “I didn’t get married just to have babies.”

Him: “So why did you get married?”

Me: “Because I fell in love with someone and wanted to commit to that person and spend my life with him.”

Him (preceding his comment with a condescending chuckle): “Let me tell you something. There’s a whole lot more to marriage than just love!”

Me: “Oh, believe me, I know. This month will be my 12 year anniversary. There is a LOT more to marriage than just love. But we don’t require people to have babies when they get married. People can still get married and just choose not to have kids, right?”

Him (looking a little perplexed): “But the Catholic Churches teaches. . .”

Me (cutting him off rudely): “But I’m not Catholic. Why should I have to follow Catholic teachings when I’m not Catholic?”

Him (probably astonished that a girl less than half his age was getting cheeky with him): “Well that’s their choice to follow the gay lifestyle.  But it doesn't mean they should be able to get married!”

Me: “It’s not a choice.”

Him: “What, do you think they’re born that way or something?”

Me: “Yes. How else would it happen?”

Him: “It’s all about the parents and how they raise their kids.”

Me: “But all of their parents are straight.”

Him: “What?”

Me: “Their parents are straight, you know; not gay.”

Him (shaking his head): “Well, the parents must have done something wrong.”

Me: “Then how do you account for families where one kid grows up to be gay and all of the other siblings are straight?”

Him (probably growing annoyed with my incessant logic): “That kid must have just missed the boat somewhere. You guys definitely lost a lot of votes on this one. You really missed the boat.”

He then walked off realizing that you just can’t reason with pinko, hippie, commie, queer-lovers who have clearly missed the boat. 

Oddly enough, it’s been 14 days and my hetero-marriage has endured.   No one has torn me from the arms of my husband in order to force me into a marriage with a woman, although I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. . . . .

Letter to the Editor

My latest letter to the Editor appeared in our local paper this week. Rather than just calling them "Letters to the Editor" like every other newspaper in America, our paper calls this section the "Open Forum." Anyway, here's my letter:

"I’ve read a lot of letters in this column recently from people who are happy about gay marriage being put on the 2012 ballot. Even some of my own friends think this is a sensible idea — just let the voters decide. What’s wrong with that?

So for anyone out there who doesn’t understand; here’s what’s wrong with that.

It is completely un-American to put the rights of a minority up for public vote by the majority. If you approach rights this way, then the majority will always keep rights from the minority because they’re voting only based on their personal opinion. If we had put interracial marriage up for public voting in the 50’s, it surely would have been outlawed. Why? Because the majority thought it was wrong and went against the Bible, and they had the majority, therefore winning the argument.

For all the bad press “activist judges” seem to get these days, there’s a point to having a judiciary, and that is to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Judges are supposed to make unpopular decisions, because their job is not to reflect the will of the people, but the will of the law and the constitution.

I have no dog in this fight. I’m not gay, and I’m already married. Gay marriage would not affect me one way or another. However, I know that it will affect many Minnesota families in a very poignant way, and it will affect many children already living in caring, two-parent, same-sex households instead of foster care.

Even if you somehow illogically think that sexuality is a “choice,” shouldn’t that choice be protected anyway? After all, nothing is more of a choice than religion, and we seem to protect that right pretty fiercely."

After the letter, there is the obligatory "comment" section where everyone and anyone can comment on your letter anonymously. These comments tend to be pretty vile, but I was surprised that with this letter, the first few comments were very eloquent, thoughtful, and flattering. However, we'll skip those comments because they're boring.

Here is the exchange between me and some of the righties in the comments section. I should explain that when I say "them" I don't mean one person - just whatever person happened to respond:

Them:  "And, the liberal courts won't be able to make gay marriage legal as easily as they could have before the Constitutional Amendment. That explains the reason for it. I also think that Republicans are enjoying the liberal screeching that this is causing."

Me: "Liberal courts" just means courts you don't agree with. It doesn't mean they're wrong."

Them: "Too many courts are trying to pass policy. They are in it for the glory and the press. But you are right Amy, we should never put anything to a vote, because some minority will cry foul. Oh hell, we cannot even agree on who can vote and who cannot. Let us just all go liberal and everyone do anything and everything that you want."

Them: "so if there is a conservative court/judge does that mean its not wrong it just means you dont agree with it."

Me: "As long as they're making their decisions based on the law and not the so-called "will of the people."

Them: "So, you're saying that the sodomy laws should be enforced?"

Me: "No, I think they should be repealed."

Them: "Sounds like somebody is a big fan of sodomy! You should make some campaign signs! We need a catchy slogan for the bumper stickers!"

Classy.

Redefining Marriage for the Better

I've been watching a lot of historical dramas lately: Camelot, The Borgias, The Tudors, etc.  Basically, you feed me an epic historical drama and I'll consume it happily.  I can't get enough of them.  And one thing they've caused me to ponder lately is the continually changing nature of marriage.

The Religious Right likes to tell us that we can't allow marriage equality because we wouldn't want to "redefine marriage" (god forbid!).  I guess these people haven't watched enough historical programming.  As it turns out (and it’s too bad they don’t teach you this in history class or something) women used to be bought and sold into marriage. Marriage was not a union of love, but one of mutual benefit for the bride and grooms’ families.  For example, if your family was broke but possessed a title of some kind, and another family was filthy rich but not of noble birth, they worked out a deal to marry their children so as to benefit both families.  Women (and often men) really had very little to say about who they actually wanted to marry.

More recently, the point of getting married was for a man to have someone who could bear his children, clean his house and cook his food, and for a woman to have someone to provide her with a house to clean and food to cook.  It was a union of mutual survival, not love.

In fact, the idea of marrying for love has been laughable for most of human history, so I can’t figure out why we continue to buy this myth that marriage is now and has always been about falling in love and then making babies.

The reality is that these days, marriage is really all about choice.  You can choose if you will marry or if you won’t.  You can choose whom to marry and then whether or not you want to have kids.  You can choose who will work or not work.  Parenting is shared much more equally than in the past, and when you fall out of love, either party can choose to get a divorce.  So what part of this picture are gay people so ill-equipped for?  They can fall in love, they can raise kids, they can work and share and do all the things everyone else can do.  Why are people so threatened by them getting married?

When marriage is defined by love, as it is today, then there is no valid reason at all to exclude people who simply choose to love someone other than who you would choose to love.  Should we also exclude assholes from getting married?  Or people with especially bad grammar?  Just because YOU wouldn’t marry someone doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to get married to the person they love. 

And don’t get all high and mighty and use the “slippery slope” argument.  You know, the one where if we allow gay people to marry then why not marry horses or children.  I think it’s pretty easy to just draw the line at two consenting adults and leave it there (polygamy is a whole different can of worms we can discuss later).