That Pesky Gay Thing...

The article I chose from The New York Times twangs a personal string, which is why I chose it. This piece speaks about a, mainly, religious organization called "The National Organization for Marriage." This group has fought other state legislatures and courts that passed a bill allowing gay couples to be married. Having success in California (as it is illegal now for a gay couple to get married in California) the group has directed their focus on Iowa. Camilla Taylor, an attorney who defended many gay couples and helped to legalize marriage in Iowa, has confidence that this organization will not have success in Iowa. The process to ban a law seems to be a long one, too. Even selections of Republicans who are against gay marriage think it "would be a mistake for the GOP to put too much emphasis on the issue."

I truly enjoy the general brush-off Christopher Rants gives the issue. As if gay marriage is not a priority at all, just a minor annoyance for him. The other aspect I find fascinating is that gay marriage and other personal identity topics are made a public opinion and that the intimate lives of people are held under a microscope and judged by the nation and often the world populous. People of hierarchy get to decide whether or not those being acutely observed are "good"-in their generally non-gay, non-transgendered, "normal" opinions. It's too easy to compare much of the anti-gay mind-sets to those of earlier prejudices of our nation’s ancestors. Once upon a time, many Americans believed black people were "marked by the devil" and were a tool of Satan's ruse to destroy humanity in some demonic fashion. Henceforth, black people were only worth anything as slaves. We still backslide into out-dated beliefs to justify slandering and repressing gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people (and other categories of the repressed) who work hard in the country. Many of whom strive for what Americans would view as a "normal" life.

I always feel deeply saddened when I discover groups like this that are actually spreading a message of hate in a country that, I always assumed, was founded on an urge to escape such hatred from it's tyrannical king, George the III. Didn't are ancestors once seek equality and recognition for such inborn rights?

That there are people like Brad Clark and Camilla Taylor striving for my equal rights makes me believe that I might one day be safe in my own country. That I might, one day, be able to marry the woman I love and have it be recognized as love--nothing less-- has me pondering remaining in the country for a while. Perhaps I’ll even speak out one day for people like me. People who are, after all, people too.