Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on marriage equality has sparked a fury of comments on both sides of the debate.
This topic has always been interesting to me from a few points of view. First, I have never understood why people are so concerned with who other people chose to sleep with. It boggles my mind.
People get really offended when you compare the feeling of inequality and unfairness that gay people experience living this American Dream to the struggles of African Americans. The history of the brutality is obviously different, but the root of the issues stem from hatred. With that being said, I do compared the two struggles.
From my point of view, I could care less. I can not think of one good reason why I would ever care about who someone I don’t even know is sleeping with. In fact, the only person I care to know who they are sleeping with is my wife!
I recently watched the Netflix series Sense8 where there were some intense gay love scenes between two male characters. I admit that I had to fast forward a few of these scenes. That is not something I enjoy watching, but I have no problem with it. I didn’t turn the series off in defiance and swear to never watch another episode. In fact the character Lito who played an actor in the series was one of my favorites. His dramatic and overly cheesy acting career provided some comedy to the series.
Photo by Jeff Belmonte
On to the marriage side of it. I must admit when the public started to pay attention to the issue years ago, I couldn’t wrap my head around how an official wedding would look with two men standing at an alter. I was neither for it or against it, it just was different. Even to this day there are things that are just strange about the whole idea of two men marrying. (Yes, I subscribe to the double standard because the thought of two women together causes me no pause!)
Now, I look at the issue from the standpoint of who am I to have an opinion on it. Why should I even care? Here is the “I have gay (or black) friends” argument. I had multiple uncles that were gay. I loved them all. One of them had a live in lover. I was young, and truthfully didn’t really know what was going on at that pre-teen age. I remember asking some questions that I’m sure made my mother cringe, but overall, I never really thought anything of it. All I remember is he was one of my favorite uncles and he loved me.
I think my own marriage has really shaped my opinion. I have enjoyed marriage and could not imagine anyone telling me that I could not marry my wife. I was fortunate to be born in a time where African Americans could marry in this country. My wife and I jumped the broom in rememberance of a time when my ancestors were not free to marry. Can you utter the words, “blacks shouldn’t be allowed to marry”. Sounds ridiculous, does it not? Maybe in 150 years, the same will be true when speaking about the LGBT community.
– the pragmatist
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