parker’s desk

I don’t do these very often — while I’m cer­tainly never short for opin­ions (ask any­one at the stu­dio), I gen­er­ally dis­like try­ing to con­vince peo­ple or just shov­ing my per­sonal opin­ions and beliefs down other people’s throats.  I don’t nor­mally like when I stum­ble upon it either, even on Face­book.  Hence my warning…this is an opin­ion post.  Dis­claimer out of the way…

It is about gor­ram time that one of those pathetic, stu­pid, poorly thought-out and bigot-fueled gay mar­riage bans was turned over.  It’s being imme­di­ately appealed and that’s fine, faster it gets to the Supreme Court so it becomes stan­dard the better.

I can’t say I am more dis­gusted, ashamed of and embar­rassed by peo­ple claim­ing to be Amer­i­cans that have sup­ported these bans.  Has our soci­ety truly become so igno­rant and poorly edu­cated that we don’t real­ize this is absolutely no dif­fer­ent what­so­ever from the days when our coun­try was telling a black per­son they can’t use the same drink­ing foun­tain as a white per­son because of their skin?  Seri­ously?  It’s almost like some kind of bad joke. 

“Oh, well…it’s dif­fer­ent,” they say.  “This is about pro­tect­ing the sanc­tity of mar­riage.  God says…”  Then you take that up with your church or reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion, and if you want to stay big­ots in there that’s on you. 

“We’ll give them civil unions, but not mar­riage.”  Just like a non-white could still ride a bus, they just had to be in a dif­fer­ent area.  Or they could still go to school, just not the one white folks went to. 

I have my own issues with reli­gion cer­tainly, I’ll freely admit that…I respect and even like cer­tain things about many of the dif­fer­ent faiths out there.  I don’t agree our coun­try was founded on any one reli­gion and think that if any­thing it was setup with the idea of peo­ple being able to freely choose their reli­gious beliefs. 

Government’s job is to set up and main­tain a sta­ble soci­ety and pro­tect an individual’s rights that are clearly defined by said government…then keep it’s hands back and freely lets peo­ple choose their reli­gion, so long as it doesn’t infringe upon anyone’s guar­an­teed rights.  You don’t get have  mul­ti­ple wives or human sac­ri­fices because your reli­gion calls for them…you can’t make up some crazed reli­gion that lets you steal or mur­der or rape.  Those all infringe on some­one else’s rights.  Yet it’s okay to tell a man he can’t marry his life part­ner that hap­pens to be a guy, because men don’t marry men.  They’ve taken no one’s rights away from them, they just want the same rights a man and woman have to marry in a het­ero­sex­ual relationship.

Per­son­ally I look for­ward to going to my brother’s wed­ding some­day (if he ever ties the knot) in a coun­try that isn’t going to tell him he’s not allowed to do so.  It’s the ideal I served my coun­try for as a United States Marine, and this over­turn­ing of the ban in Cal­i­for­nia is finally a rag to scrub away that nasty shit-stain on California’s history.

Dammit I’m up way too late.  G’night!

Share on Facebook