“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”
Today’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional
I don’t remember the first time I heard about the concept of gay marriage. As I recall, dimly, through the mists of my memory, it was something Andrew Sullivan proposed. Or maybe he was just the first well-known proponent with a large megaphone to speak through. Or maybe I’m wrong entirely, I don’t know.
I do remember thinking: Gays getting married? Wow, that sounds kind of weird. Then, about 30 seconds later, my attitude was pretty much at Yeah, whatever.
And that was before I realized all of the social and legal benefits that go along with legal marriage. I know, I know, I’m slow sometimes and need some things pointed out to me. When you’ve always had a privilege, you don’t think much about what it must be like to not have it and sometimes you need things explained to you from different viewpoints. Everything I take for granted as a result of my marriage, other people — who are just like me in every way, except the gender of their partner — do not get to have.
That is ridiculous.
That is wrong.
We, as a society, have to be better than that. We have to have higher aims.
I’ve never heard an argument against gay marriage that didn’t boil down to: my religion says it’s wrong, or the whole idea makes me feel icky so I want it go away.
These are bad arguments. There’s no two ways around it: if you’re against gay marriage, you want to take rights away from other people for no better reason than you think they shouldn’t have them.
Here is an accurate distillation of my feelings about social progress:
You know our motto here at Kung Fu Monkey: Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century, stand over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800’s stand over there. Thanks. Good luck with that.
John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey, “Prop 8 Overturned” (2010 edition)