Adam & Steve Walked In To A Bar...

and exclaimed, "Wow - that fig leaf Eve has on is simply fabulous!"

Do you see how they don't hate on Eve for having girl parts?  They embrace the differences between them.

 "but it's cool for Tom Green to hump a dead moose.  We ain't nothin’ but mammals.. Well, some of us cannibals who cut other people open like cantaloupes but if we can hump dead animals and antelopes then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope."

This is a perfect example of where our priorities lie. Our American society rallies around the flag, tooting our horns about freedom and civil rights. And yet.. there seems to be this big to-do about letting only certain people marry. The last I checked, the technical definition of marriage is "the joining of two people in commitment." 

We really do glorify things such as obscene acts with animals, rolling around Hollywood in a drunken stupor, laughing in secret at the jokes we don't want our friends to know we think they're funny.  How about finding love and life ever after on a reality show?  Sell yourself on television for a rose and a ring, this is acceptable.  Two people in love who want to marry and commit themselves to each other - this is somehow going to ruin your life as you know it? 

Many view marriage as a religious ceremony, and traditionally it is. However, I thought we were supposed to have a separation of church and state. Why is it we haven't just made marriage a civil thing across the board; him and her, he and him, she and her. If you want to go off and have a religious something or other on top of that, have at it, much as we do now. But, everyone should have the right to marry, divorce or live in so-called sin.

For those who are afraid "gay" is contagious, grow up and get over your cootiephobia. It is ridiculous, and you are paranoid. If you truly think that homosexuality is hell-worthy, but in the next breath forgive those who rape, pillage, mutilate and murder others, perhaps your heart isn't as pure as you'd like to believe. Come on down from that pedestal - I'm here to tell you how lonely it can get up there.

 And refusing gay couples to adopt children? What will they pass on - Tolerance of the hate that surrounds them? Forgiveness in the face of judgment? Commitment? Unconditional love? Or maybe, just maybe, they will save a child from a life of loneliness, abandonment, and abuse.

 Do you really want to go through this life thinking someone like Marshall Mathers is more enlightened than you are?

You have every right to your opinion - that's me accepting this about you.  I just don't have to agree with you.  The problem that I have with some of the things I hear coming out of the mouths of religious babes ("hate the sin, not the sinner." "Science has nothing to do with it." "I don't care what they do, as long as I don't have to see it!") is that it hurts others.  And there seems to be little interest in rectifying that.  It's God's way or the highway.  The thing is, your God isn't everyone's.  But a surprising amount of gays do believe in a God who loves them unconditionally.

 
I invite you to have a seat at my table and break bread with my sister, my cousin, my cousin-in-law, and my friends. Start a discussion about why they don't deserve the same rights you do. That they are not worthy of the love that you have or have had in your life. Tell them all about how they've sinned. Make sure to look them in the eye as you pontificate, it helps get your point across that much stronger.

Then go home and look yourself in the eye in your own mirror. It's so much easier to preach to your intolerance, much harder to "save" the stone-thrower who stares back at you.

 

(c) Kymberlie Ingalls, 2010

Lyrics and Music:  The Real Slim Shady / Eminem