All of my life, I have never understood why it matters so much to some people how other people live their lives, especially if no harm is being done to anyone. I’ve also never understood racism or sexism or any of the -ism’s, though I’ve been a victim a time or two in some form or another of various types.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love and hate and fear.
Despite having no desire to get married myself and finding myself hopelessly alone anyway, I am a hopeless romantic. I think everyone hopes there is someone out there for them.
And if you are among the lucky pairs to find happy blissfulness and for some reason want to be committed to each other in some sort of ritualistic ceremony involving all of your friends and family that ends with the signing of a contractual paper that joins you in the eyes of the law, if not some religion, what if someone with some sort of authoritative power said you could never be married?
It’s hard to believe that in the 21rst century that sort of thing still goes on. There are still arranged marriages in some cultures, even here in the U.S. When many of us think about them, we think about how ridiculously unmodern they are. We tell them to ignore their family values and traditions and marry who they want and love.
But as a society we are hypocrites.
Just within the last week, mortifying news has come out of my home State of Louisiana of Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell of Tangipahoa Parish who refused to marry an interracial couple. According to him, he doesn’t marry interracial couples because he’s worried about the children’s futures.
“Perhaps he’s worried the kids will grow up and be president,” said Bill Quigley, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Justice, referring to President Barack Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. (Many angry man wouldn’t marry interracial couple)
How can it be possible that in the same year that our first black President has been sworn into office, there are still bigots in authoritative positions in government? This man has had the power for 34 years to marry or apparently to refuse to marry couples. In all that time, no one noticed or mentioned that he was turning away interracial couples.
In case you’re wondering, in 1967 the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws — laws that banned interracial marriage and/or interracial sex — are unconstitutional. At that time, there were still 16 states with laws in effect.
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival….Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. (Loving v. Virginia decision)
Less than 42 years ago. Not even a half a century. A blink of an eye ago. We are not that evolved. In fact, Alabama became the last state to repeal their mixed-marriage law just 9 years ago in 2000.
Now, Bardwell really has no business deciding who can get married and who can’t as long as they love each other, right? After all, if no one is getting hurt, it’s really none of his business at all. It’s nobody’s business. The only, one’s who needed to be making the decision about whether or not a long term commitment was what they really, really wanted to do, are the people who are going to be getting married. Bardwell just needed to do his job. If he were a doctor and someone were injured, he would be expected to help that person. If he were a police officer and someone was being robbed, he would be expected to stop the robber. He ran for Justice of the Peace, he knew what the job detailed, he needed to keep his opinion to himself and do his job.
I don’t know if it is fear or hate that drives this kind of behavior, this need to restrict and subjugate someone who is different in some way — maybe they look different or they pray different or they love different or they think different or they dream different — you know, all of those beautiful, wonderful things that make life and the world so interesting and entertaining. I suppose there are people who need to find ways to make themselves feel superior or special or right or righteous or chosen somehow. By denying basic rights to another human being based on a singular difference, they fake their way to this place in their own eyes and perhaps in the eyes of their peers. They build themselves a false superiority, a hypocritical righteousness.
And so I come to current events. I’m so very conscious of the current hate-filled anti-equality movement to keep same-sex couples from marrying in this country now. In Maine for the last few months it’s been building into a nice quiet storm as the November elections approach. On May 6th, Governor John Baldacci signed into law a “freedom to marry” bill overwhelmingly approved by the Senate and House, making Maine the fifth state to allow same-sex marriage. However, immediately afterward, anti-gay groups gathered signatures and mounted an attack campaign to put a referendum to have the law repealed on the November ballot.
The Freedom to Marry bill specifically states that no one of Faith will be required to marry any same-sex couple; no Faith-based facility will be required to hold a same-sex wedding ceremony. Basically the new law indicates these marriages are state marriages and Churches can do what they want. There are in fact a number of Churches and religious groups backing the law though. So, the argument about what God says about marriage should be left to Church sermons and not to public debate.
So, what the anti-gay movement has been focusing on is attempting to scare the public that same-sex marriage will be taught in our schools. They even have a commercial with a couple of parents from Massachusetts stating that now that same-sex marriage is legal there, their first grader was taught about “boys marrying boys”.
My initial reaction to these commercials was “So what?” Maybe it wouldn’t be so confusing to kids if they knew that some of their friends just had a Mommy and some just had a Daddy and some have a Mommy and Daddy who don’t live together and some have a Mommy and a Daddy with a Step-Mommy and some have two Mommies and some live with their Grandparents and so on. Not all families are the “traditional” Mother, Father, and kids anymore, if they ever were. Often the people pushing that “traditional” crap aren’t even living it themselves anyway.
But what I really noticed about all the publicity leading up to this upcoming vote is that the commercials supporting keeping the new law seem friendly and have happy music; they show families of different types who are all smiling and happy; they talk about equality.
The commercials against the law are all dark, unpleasant, alarming; no one is smiling; no one has anything nice to say; they are about doom and gloom.
Less than 50 years ago, sixteen (16) States still believed it was morally wrong for a white man and a black woman to get married just because of the color of their skin. No one bothered to ask them if they loved each other, if they thought they could live without each other, if they could imagine a life without each other. They were born the same way, bled the same way, and eventually they would die the same way, but the pigments of their skin were a shade different and that was all that mattered for 16 States until the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional.
How many years is it going to take us until it’s only sixteen States that still deny any adult of any sex to marry and adult of any sex? And how many until it’s none? How many until we’re talking in surprise about one Justice of the Peace in some little town who somehow has been getting away with refusing to marry same-sex couples for decades after it’s all mainstream?
It wouldn’t be so difficult if people would mind their own business. After all, what’s going on in one person’s marriage isn’t bothering someone else’s marriage. What should it matter to anyone who is married on earth? If it doesn’t hurt anyone here, then it’s God’s job to judge when it’s all over and done with.
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