Pensieri di un lunatico minore

Last gasp of a desperate dogmatism

Sitting in his besoiled tower, John Paul II has found his new Crusade—-to oppose and undermine the expanding concept of gay rights in the world. Beginning with the simple statement “Marriage exists solely between a man and woman … Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law,” the Pope has single-handedly displayed why a secular society must extricate itself from the morass of duplicitous religious dogma and step into a secular definition of unions. By clearly articulating the tie between “marriage” and religion, the Pope has demonstrated why the definition of marriage is most distinctly not a matter of the state, at least here in the US.

We must ask ourselves, as a nation founded by those fleeing religious persecution, whether the codification of religious views into law is necessarily the “right direction” for the United States to be taking. This, exactly as the fourth estate is trumpeting the decline of support for gay rights in the United States. What could all this mean?

I believe we stand at a cross-roads between generations, with the eroding support coming mainly from older people, and a combination of other factors. One of the factors, I believe, that plays into the psychology of the American. We, as a nation, want to be perceived as tolerant. We want to be perceived as accepting. But we are not. We are issolationist, and affraid of change as much as anyone else, and so when the people are asked about their support of a controversial issue, much of their response is dictated by how likely that issue is to come to pass.

For example, when people believed that “gay marriage,” or more accurately a civil union with equal rights under the State, was a pipe-dream and unlikely to ever come to pass, it was a “no cost” vote to say they supported such a creation, knowing deep down inside that they would never be asked to accept such a thing. However, when the Supreme Court rules that “separate but equal” is not acceptable in treatment of people based on sexuality, the tables have flipped and there are now strong leanings that such a creation could come to pass. Now, fear of change sweeps the nation, fueled by the war-drums of fundamentalist religious “scholars” hell-bent on enshrining their singular interpretation of God into law.

The primary “fear” that is being propagated is that somehow allowing two men, or two women, to join in a union is going to undermine the “sacrement” of marriage. This is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it, but is affraid to say it. There is nothing left to be done to destroy marriage that men and women haven’t managed to inflict. Marriages are collapsing left and right, not because of gays and lesbians, but because people are shallow, short-sighted, self-centered and more interested in personal gain than the construction of the family unit. That has nothing to do with homosexuality, and everything to do with the debasing of society by greed.

As the war-drums beat away, and “conservatives,” hell bent on the hypocricy of governmental involvement in private affairs, latch onto yet another way to avoid the actual pressing issues of education, the environment, true security and civil reform—-something which requires no more intellegence than a 6 second sound bite, and is built for the polarization of the electorate, we see where the world is headed: further isolation of the electorate by irrational behavior in civic and social leaders.

There is an irony in our nation that can not be escaped. We proclaim our Christian virtue with bombs and layoffs; we stress our humanitarianism by avoiding involvement in regions for “strategic reasons”; we go to church so that we might be forgiven for beating our wives; we pray so that we might be forgiven for incarcerating a terrifying percentage of our young people; we kneel so that we might gain God’s graces in supporting our Jim Crowe judicial system.

Several centuries ago, some men of portent wrote some simple words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are still, today, searching for our Independence.