Historically Speaking

I know I went on recently about the importance of knowing history and have all those links below but something got in my craw. It's this whole gay marriage thing. Reading about it, I find completely dumb statements from Dubya such as, " After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization." All these conservatives and Vicars of Bray folk blather on in reverent atavistic tones about heterosexual marriage being the "foundation of civilization" pulled right out of their asses. Please, make them go away.

I would argue that agriculture is the foundation of civilization. Our troops tromping around in Iraq are in the middle of the Fretile Crescent - one of the areas showing evidence of the earliest attempts at growing food by us hairless apes. Man is a social animal and has never needed a writ or ceremony to be with our fellow humans. We do it naturally as we hunted & gathered, procreated, and sat around fires together long before a bunch of desert nomads decided that the end of the world was nigh and came up with the Old Testament to assuage their delusional minds.

Perhaps instead of scheming to amend the Constitution, such folks could concentrate on, say, lowering the divorce rate. As was publicized after the election, red states generally have a higher divorce rate than blue states. But if this is too high a calling, then perhaps they can learn some history. Some history about how homosexuality and marriage have changed over the ages. The Church at one time laid its blessing on gay marriage and even had some same-sex ceremonies. Various cultures at different times have sanctioned polygamy, homosexuality, and even what we consider pedantry. Even heterosexual marriage has changed throughout the centuries. Courtship wasn't always about flirtating, dating, and proposing. Love wasn't always in the picture. Look at those young womyn who were married against their wills by their parents so as to consolidate land & power and move daddy up in prestige. A nice Christian order indeed. There is no straight line from the invention of heterosexual marriage to the wonderful world of Wal-Mart that we enjoy today.

Will someone tell me exactly in what way sanctioning gay marriage is an offensive on heterosexual marriage so that some people feel we need "Defense of Marriage" Acts? How exactly will our civilization crumble if gays are allowed to marry? What slippery slope are we on exactly?

Humanity is one of those entangled banks with a vast array of people of various inclinations, orientations, dispositions, etc. and we all have to deal with one another. Doing so requires tolerance - a live-and-let-live approach if we're to do it successfully. Even if you're inclined to moral repugnance towards gay marriage, don't lie and couch it in historical generalizations that are grossly misleading, if not false.