For weeks I
’ve been reading letters and columns about such things as gay
marriage, and I’ve held back from tossing my two cents into the
fray.
For weeks I’ve been reading letters and columns about such things as gay marriage, and I’ve held back from tossing my two cents into the fray. But I finally reached the point, where I’ve either been sucked into the discussion, or I have been outraged sufficiently.
I’ll have to say first that I’ve never been a good candidate for any religion, because I don’t tend to use faith as a guide. Show me proof, and I’m there. Show me something in print – no matter whether it’s the Bible or Bill O’Reilly’s latest tome – and I want some corroboration.
In sixth grade, I asked Sister Mancini, “What would you think if, after a lifetime devoted to God, you found out there was no God?” That got me into a heap of trouble. I questioned faith. But I’m not completely beyond redemption. I also side with the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking, who postulated that the universe came about as a result of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. He figured that God was as good a reason as any for the universe’s creation, because he couldn’t determine what happened before the “singularity” that exploded and unfolded into our vast universe.
I read people’s arguments against gay marriage and say, “How dare you speak for God?” How can anyone even have the conceit to believe that they can begin to understand an entity that created the complex universe in which we live, an entity that could create the brain, DNA, photosynthesis, subatomic particles, light and gay people? We’re not only on a lower plane, but on a plane so low that most of us can’t figure out whether one long distance service is better than another, let alone how to unravel the complex mysteries of the universe.
Wanna quote Jesus? How about the “as you do to the least of my brethren” part? I’m no Biblical scholar, but I remember the stuff I heard as a kid. What stuck were the good messages, the stuff from the Old Testament and the New Testament, the messages like, “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do my father’s will,” or “It’s easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” True? Then Donald Trump, George Bush, John Kerry, Michael Eisner and just about every famous person had better be ready to roast.
So if God put us all here, then what makes people want to keep folks from being united in love? The assumption, of course, is that there is a God. A lot of people believe there is one. And a large number don’t believe in any God. Who’s right? Well, it gets down to a matter of faith. Unfortunately, matters of faith don’t wash too well in a court of law. Saying you believe something won’t hold up very well against empirical proof. And using Biblical text as the basis of modern law is just asking for trouble, since it’s codified faith, not codified results of tests and independently verifiable observation.
Am I against the ethical principles put forth in the Bible, the Koran or the guiding principles of other religions? Heck, no. Good teachings are good teachings. And some people persistently say, “But the framers of the Constitution said …” My answer is, “What do you expect from a bunch of mostly rich, white, English, Protestant men living in the 1780s?”
Like the Bible, the Constitution couldn’t be all-inclusive to cover advances in science and society. It’s not the fault of our country’s forefathers that they couldn’t foresee the Internet, the telephone, AK-47s, infrared-vision cameras, in-vitro fertilization, women voting, people not owning slaves, or openly gay couples living together. They didn’t have our frame of reference, our worldview, just as those in the days of the Old Testament couldn’t foresee refrigeration or means of preventing diseases such as trichinosis from pork, or treatments for leprosy.
My point, after all of this, is that maybe it’s time to examine some of the issues such as gay marriage, union, or whatever you want to call it, by using a modern approach, by employing reasoned discourse, instead of leaning on one religion or another as the basis of far-reaching decisions.
It’s time we confront these issues sensibly, rather than calling everyone names, or invoking fears of the end of civilization, the end of heterosexual love, etc., and looking into the real implications of what it means for gay people to derive the same benefits and protection of law as anyone else.
A tech writer, editor, and web developer, Tom Mulhern and his wife have been living in Gilroy for three years. You can reach him at tm************@***oo.com
