Them's fightin' words...

Yup, it's a political post. I usually stay out of political discussions because in my experience they mostly boil down to Your Party vs. My Party backed up by talking points that may or may not be based on factual information or logically sound reasoning, and to me those are not worth losing friends over.

The problem with staying disengaged is that I miss out on the occasional valid point that I haven't heard before that makes it clear where those on the other side of the issue are coming from. And I want to know! I sincerely want to believe that my fellow American voters actually DO have really good reasons for their various viewpoints, and that they aren't just buying into propaganda. If I'm going to have heated disagreements with my friends on policy issues, I want us to be able to walk away respecting the validity of each other's positions, even if we still disagree about the specific goals of policy or the methods for achieving those goals.

So, at the risk of starting something that may degrade into the intellectual version of Rollerball, I'm going to state my case on a hot-button issue in the hopes of getting some insight from the other side. Because frankly, after years of listening to the back-and-forth, I still have no idea why the other side's position continues to be supported.

The issue? Marriage equality!

I support it. Of course. I want to live in a country whose legal system treats people equally. Totally equally, not 'separate-but-equal'-ly or some more equally than others. I do NOT want to live in a country where I may be subject to different treatment under the law than another person in my situation based solely on personal characteristics that I can't change. And, no, sexual orientation is not a choice. There's plenty of research out there to back me up on that. Google it.

So far, all the arguments I've heard for restricting marriage laws boil down to one of three things:

1) Same-sex couples can't have children, and the historical purpose of marriage is to provide for reproduction and raising of children.

Not only does this argument completely ignore the thousands of couples who are bravely raising children in spite of the current hostile political and social climate AND the thousands upon thousands more couples who would love more than anything to raise families together but aren't willing to do so in the current climate, but by that logic opposite-sex couples shouldn't be legally recognized as 'married' either if they don't intend to have children. Next?

2) Homosexuality goes against the Bible.

Well, maybe...so does eating shellfish, and as far as I know nobody's trying to criminalize that. It's true that our legal system takes inspiration from the Christian Bible and its predecessor the Torah...and also from a lot of other cultural and historical traditions. The laws of our religiously pluralistic country cannot and should not be defined by one religion's dogma. That bit in the Constitution about making 'no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'? Yeah, that goes both ways. If Congress can't dictate religion to the people of the US, neither can religion dictate the law. What else ya got?

3) Homosexuality is unnatural/pathological/icky.

That's a matter of opinion, not fact. All the available scientific evidence suggests otherwise. The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as an aspect of personality, not as a matter of normal or abnormal psychology. Incidentally, at different times in our nation's history, the above has been said about all kinds of things people didn't like, including interracial marriage, women participating in the workforce and left-handedness. It wasn't a valid legal argument against any of those things either.

So, to all you marriage "traditionalists" out there: What gives? Do you guys have an actual LEGAL basis for wanting to exclude same-sex couples from your club? If so, I would love to hear it!