Nov 21 2008
Marriage therapy
As the supporters of Proposition 8 celebrate the narrow victory of the ban on same sex marriage, I’m wishing I could ask them some questions. Foremost, I’d like to understand why they would want to discriminate against me. I don’t mean gays and lesbians, I mean against myself, personally. Most people who know me like me well enough, and some of those friends, neighbors, coworkers, and friendly acquaintances launched a campaign of messages that said my kind of family isn’t as good as theirs, or even valid. And they chose to enjoy rights associated with marriage, which they would not grant me. And, beyond harboring rancor regarding our difference in their hearts, they pressed to codify discrimination into the law of our beautiful state of California.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, because it wasn’t so long ago that our country was segregated by race, and women and people of color were denied the right to vote. Change, understanding, and tolerance take time to overcome fear and ignorance. But I would like to ask: When your battle cry is “Protect Marriage,” what exactly are you protecting it from? From meAnd how could allowing more people to marry diminish the institution of marriage? Did you think it all the way through, or did you just rally behind a sound bite that sounded righteous without thinking critically about it?
Many of the supporters of Proposition 8 call themselves Christians. You, I’d like to ask, aren’t tolerance and kindness to those different from you part of Christian values? Did you think that through for yourselves, or did you just follow a definition of a Christian agenda set out by someone else? If your answer to these questions is a quotation from The Bible, I have a follow-up question for you: If God wants you to interpret The Bible literally, do you also have to support slavery? Is it an abomination before God to eat shellfish? Or is it okay to pick and choose, cafeteria style which passages of The Bible you are free to judge others by?
The fight over same gender marriage in California cost its supporters in excess of $75 million dollars. Would that money not have been better spent on education or charity as espoused by Christian churches?
One of the pillars of the argument in favor of Proposition 8 is the concept of, and fondness for tradition. Do we want to cling to traditions that no longer make sense? For example, would we like to eliminate marriage which does not see a woman as the property of a man? I’ll spare you the obvious question about the LDS (Mormon) Church’s traditional marriage arrangement, even though the LDS Church provided significant funding to support Prop-8. But it is relevant to ask about the political motivation behind what your church is telling you is right or wrong, holy or unholy, natural or unnatural, a threat or not a threat.
In the past, religions preached variations on being fruitful and multiplying as a way of increasing numbers of followers. Now that we are having babies later in life, and not so many, and birth control is relatively well-accepted, churches can’t any longer grow by birthrate, so how do they grow? One way—and I’m not saying this is the strategy of every church—is by rallying their members around fear of those different from themselves, and a notion that their members are somehow better or more loved by God than others. Where would this continuing trend ultimately lead? Certainly not to peace, understanding, and prosperity.
In those religious arguments is embedded that sexual orientation is a choice. Are you prepared to accept those arguments in the face of solid science which shows that there are genetic and biological differences that correspond to sexual orientation?
Finally, have you ever had the experience of standing in line, cheek by jowl with your neighbors, coworkers, customers, bosses, people from the dog park, people from church, and wondered which of them, in the privacy of the voting booth is choosing to invalidate your relationship, take away your rights, and think him- or herself righteous in so doing? I have. I ask one thing more: Please don’t judge me until you have too.
Alex Mackenzie
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
