Over a Candle

I’ve been listening to various reports on NPR about the continuing battle over California’s Proposition 8. That’s the referendum narrowly passed by California voters banning gay marriage. I must admit, I am completely baffled.

One of the things I try very hard to do is to understand different perspectives. And I think I do a fairly good job of it. I understand theists. And I understand atheists. (Even when I adamantly disagree with both.) I understand pro-life advocates and pro-choice advocates. I even understand people who support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But I do not understand people who oppose gay marriage. I am at a loss as to how someone else getting married affects other people’s marriage. People get married all the time, and none of their nuptials affects my relationship with Ronni in any way, shape or form.

I don’t understand what they feel threatened by. How is more people in loving, committed relationships a bad thing? How does that devalue marriage? And how can people still believe that civil unions, the latest example of “separate but equal,” can be an acceptable response?

I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just too tired. It’s not that I don’t agree with the arguments, it’s that I don’t even understand them. And that’s not a usual position for me to be in. It feels like an intellectual failure.

I’m not hopeful that the California court will overturn Proposition 8. And that’s too bad. I hope that this goes back on the ballot and that supporters of equal rights in California learn from the mistakes of last year’s campaign.

It’s disheartening to see this much bias and discrimination alive and well in the 21st century.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.