Facebook has been littered with comments the last couple of days from both my gay and straight friends regarding the law that didn't pass in Maine this week pertaining to same-sex marriage. And this week, as a good friend of Nick and I's has set the date for his second wedding for just a little over a month away. This will be his second marriage, the first that happened last year, to an 18 year old girl he had known for 3 months and married in 6 months. This time around he has known the girl for about 7 and is getting married at the end of the year. And as I sit here tonight and think about it, about how wrong I think it is... about how he is allowed to do this, make the same mistakes over and over, how he is allowed to make these big decisions with no punishment at all for wrong choices, without any consequences and there are couples all over the world, couples that have loved each other for years, some for decades and many that have had their relationships last longer than so many many straight couples.
If you heard about two couples, one couple that had been breaking up and getting back together for months at a time. A couple that met and married in just a few months, a couple with no real respect for each other, a couple that are getting married in Vegas just for the fun of it, for the party.
And yet on the other side of the country is a couple that has been together for years and years, decades of commitment, decades of true and real honest love. It's a couple that has weathered the storms together, that has made a life together, that has held each other's hand through everything, that have been committed citizens and giving friends, tax payers and voters.
Which would you say is more deserving of a certificate to announce their commitment to each other? Which would you say is more deserving of that choice, that option of marriage?
I am and always will be a firm believer in gay marriage for a number of reasons, but the first and foremost reason being that we are no one to say that they don't deserve that as much as we do. I'm not saying that churches have to open their doors for these marriages, or that religion has to play a role in this at all. So what is so wrong with having a legal document for a couple to exchange vows and commit themselves to one another? How is that wrong?
And the older I get and the more I understand, the more I see how ignorant our country is, how close minded, how unwilling we are to change. From gay marriage, to women's equal rights, to sustainability and environmental protection. When are we going to understand that we are ruining everything?
I sit here tonight and ask you... regardless of your religion, regardless of race or gender or sexuality, how is it legal for people to get married with a snap of finger as long as you're of age and straight, without any meaning or love involved, but when a gay couple in love, devoted to each other isn't allowed even the choice.
And so tonight, as Facebook is a-buzz with this chatter, with comments from people all around the U.S., gay and straight, male and female, hopefully at some point soon we can make a change and someday, we will be a country with rights for all.
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