A Sacred Insistution?

I have heard an awful lot of rheetoric this week against the Massachusettes Supreme courts decision to question their stand on bannning gay marriage. The argument is quite silly, I think. Here's why.

Homosexuality is not a political stand, it's a phenomenon that happens in the world, with Human beings, Animals and birds. It's not a "New Idea", but has probably been around as long as heterosexuality. Why? No one knows. Probably as a population control mechanism because heterosexuals don't know how to stop breeding, but to discriminate against homos in any way today, knowing what we know about biology, sexuality and culture, is ignorant to say the least. Denying a Gay person the right to ANYTHING a straight person has is the same as denying restrooms to Blacks, segregaating Jews from mainstream society, or locking children out of school because they have big ears. It's just silly and frankly downright wrong. Period.

Many say that granting gays the right to marry is a threat to traditional families, yet they flatly fail to show how. If asked how two men or two woman marrying is a threat to anybody, the only real argument I hear is some incoherant mumbling about "The children, the tradtitional family". Again, where is the threat? Are gay couples going to start invading homes and stealing kids? Are gay couples suddenly going to start "Changing" the face of the american family? Well, maybe that face needs a lift.
many "traditional Families" I've seen these days consist of a Mom that got knocked up too young, a Deadbeat Dad, and a teenage kid selling drugs on the corner. When people can get 'hitched" in five minutes at a drivethru window in Las vegas, someone needs to show me where the heck this "Sacred Institution" is.

The traditional Family threat lies in the concept that these well meaning religous right winged conservative parents are going to have to start being nice to their Gay neighbors, and paying attention to those Gay parents at the PTA meetings.

Soon, one will have to hold their tongue, because you might not be ablee to tell the Gays from the straights anymore, as if you ever could. The idea of gays marrying means that the gay lifestyle is going to end up one more foot closer to visible, in your face, and taking over the society that straights have fought so hard to preserve, where the lesser humans know their place, and those we detest stay out off sight, where we can look down upon them, make jokes about them, beat them up and string them to fences and left to die. Pushing forward and demanding the right to pursue happiness is just the GAY way. It's a civil right, and we're not asking, we're just letting you know were taking it.

Remember, it is no longer illegal in the United States to be gay. It's is, however, illegal to deny anyone the basic human rights, of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Hapinness.

The simple fact, DENYING someone the right to do something that is in their interest to do for the sake of their own happiness because an opposing person or group has feelings about it, and those fellings are based on the concept of personal, moral or religous beliefs is, according to our values in the United States, unfair, and frankly, fascist .(See Adolph Hitler's "Mein Komph")

It is not a Special right the gay people are askig for, but an equal right. Though many people oppose the thought of Gay people marrying, it's not necessarily something they can stop. I would venture to say that marriage is a sacred institution between two consenting human adults WHO LOVE EACH OTHER.

When the constitution of the United Steates was formed, no one could forsee in the future that something as obscure as homosexuality would ever show it's face in an area like this. The Constitution should uphold any argument for, and deny any argument against the lifting of such a ban on Gay marriage as a civil trust . Today, most conservatives might be looking at those words "Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" and thinking "we created a monster!"

The Big Bang Theory

In a clip form a movie that ended up on the cutting room floor, Jeff bridges starred as President of the United States and told his cabinet a story to try to explain his train of thinking on a specific topic.

He told the story of a small group of Chimps in a cage that were gently offered a banana, dangling on a string in the middle of the room. When one of the chimps reached for this banana, they were all spontaneoiusly doused with a violent spray of cold water.

One by one they all took turns reaching for the banana until each of them had been soaked to the bone.
When it was decided that all the chimps had learned to avoid the banana, and to see it not as a tasty snack but an opportunity for hypothermia, the cage masters introduced another, new and fresh chimp, who knew nothing of cold water or recent events.
When this new chimp so much as looked at the banana that was offered, all other chimps suddenly and without thought pounced on him and beat the shit out of him.

Why? Because that's the way we do things around here.

I have recently become quite close to a young man who in every way has brought a certain amount of sparkle into my life. He's cheerful and fun, forgiving and patient, affectionate and cooks better than Martha Stewart. He's in every way a completely wonderful person and I believe I am falling in love with him. His Name is Bang.

The problem I suffer today has nothing to do with him, but with the history I have witnessed in the narrow field of view that is my own personal cage, for I know I have gazed lovingly on bananas just like this one, and felt the same way as I do today.
My problem however lies not in the possibility that I might once again be drenched with cold water upon approach, but perhaps more dangerously, that I won't.

In situations like this one, with bananas that seemed to hold as much if not more promise and appeal, I have found myself, even recently, huddled in a corner, shocked and shivering, dripping from head to toe with anger frustration and self doubt.

Would this turn of fruit prove any different? Perhaps.

Perhaps I'll be the one monkey who knows the banana is not the prize at all, braves the cold water, snatches up what he came for and in his chilly, dripping corner takes comfort in the fact that he reached out, hung on and got what he wanted regardless of the current climate, making this particular fruit a prize beyond sweet.

Perhaps I can be that one idiotic monkey that knows this banana is never where the danger really lies, and that the only danger is in being in a place where people you never meet or see can fuck with you, and talk you out of what it is you know you really want.

Or maybe, as freud once mentioned, sometimes a banana is just a banana.

Regardless, this blog echoing into the dark abyss is a message to anyone listening that I am once again, for the third time in 6 years, venturing out from my corner and reaching for the banana.

Let the hosing begin.

Posted by tommy 11/10/2003

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