The Battle Continues

A little catch up on this posting space; some things I'd already put up in LiveJournal.

The day after the election, when Virginians unfortunately voted YES to an amendment to our Bill of Rights (!) prohibiting marriage, I wrote the following letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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To all of those who voted yes on question one: Congratulations, you have managed to make discrimination and hate a "right" in Virginia. Yes, this new clause you have approved goes into our Bill of Rights.

Some of you have done this with the cry "we must protect heterosexual marriage!" What kind of marriage would that be? Do you want to protect somebody like pop icon Britney Spears, who gets a throwaway marriage in Las Vegas, then marries a man who is willing to just walk away from his pregnant girlfriend, has two babies of her own with that man and then decides to divorce him? Is that what you need to protect? Two years ago, when San Francisco and Portland Oregon briefly attempted to do the right thing and allow marriage for all, the same sex couples getting married were doing so to express their desire for a lifelong commitment to each other. How does this harm anybody? Massachusetts has allowed same sex marriage since 2004. What has happened? Nothing much, except that people who love each other can have their unions recognized by the state.

For those who cried "think of the children!" what is it that you are afraid of? That the children will see happy loving couples, living peacefully together? For those who somehow justify your bigotry by saying you are "pro-family," I ask, why then are you trying to prevent new families from being created? For those who would bring your religious beliefs into a purely civil matter, I simply will say that the God that I learned about is a loving God. When I was in Sunday school, I did not learn about hate and discrimination. I can only hope that you are prepared to face His judgment as you have so easily chosen to judge others.

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Although I received a call the following day from the paper asking me to verify that I'd written the letter, a week went by before they actually published it. What they did publish was severely edited.

No picking on other people's g/G/od I guess.


I just walked out to my mailbox to pick up today's delivery and found a letter from "The Family Foundation," one of the key backers of the amendment. In true Rove-esque fashion, they attempt to shift the argument to a different place:

We believe that the best possible way to raise a child is with a man and a woman, married.

There are thousands of studies that show this. There will always be a Britney Spears scenario out there, but we strive for the best possible outcome for society. That's not bigotry or hate, simply asking the state to do what's best. Fortunately 1.3 million American's [sic] here in Virginia agree.

OK, assuming for a moment that these "thousands of studies" do exist, how is allowing a same-sex couple to marry in any way preventing a child from being raised by "a man and a woman, married"? How does allowing a same-sex couple to marry in any way affect somebody else's marriage? Again, why does an expression of LOVE scare these people?

I have not yet begun to fight.