Gay Marriage: AKA The Dumbest Debate of All Time

First of all, would you believe me if I told you I haven't posted for a while because I was taken, and I was waiting for Liam Neeson to get his ass in gear and come rescue me? ...No, I didn't think so
Ok, truth time: I have the attention span of a 3 year old, and I got distracted and lazy. Sorry.

Now, to the topic at hand:

This is a debate between Dan Savage (once described to me as "the Henry Rollins of the gay community") and Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (AKA, a hate group aimed at spreading misinformed propaganda disguised as evangelistic material). It's a debate about gay marriage, moderated by a dude from the New York Times. My favorite part of this is, just looking at the screen shot above, Dan Savage's side of the table is littered with notes and articles and a book, while Brian Brown has one notepad. Hmm, I wonder who's more prepared for this.

This happened in August of 2012, so I am (as per usual) a little late on this one, but if you haven't watched it yet, you absolutely should. Dan Savage is so articulate, and his arguments are delivered in such a well-thought out, meticulous, and just manner -- I'd watch this dude talk forever. Dan Savage started this whole event with a simple statement that we ignore huge sections of the Bible when it suits us, so why not also ignore the part that bans gay marriage, and embrace equal rights as the supposedly progressive society that we pretend to be?

Brian Brown's response to that was to basically whine that Dan Savage and other like-minded individuals were picking on the Christian church. All of his arguments are so ill-conceived and poorly backed, half the time you can't even really understand what the eff he's talking about.

While I could put in my own two cents on literally every point of this debate (because it's the kind of thing you don't watch where people can see you, because you will yell), there are two main points i want to hit here.

The first, is the statement that Brian Brown makes, rather exasperatedly, about how unfair it is that the National Organization for Marriage and other similar groups are labeled as "hate groups" simply because they have oppositional views. I'm not sure if he doesn't know, or chooses not to know, that it has nothing to do with the beliefs that his group espouses -- it is the actions his group takes on behalf of those beliefs. Brian Brown speaks about marriage equality as if to allow this basic human right, would somehow marginalize and persecute the Christian majority. Allow me to point you to this awesome billboard:

If you believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, that's your deal. No one is denying your right to believe that. Where the line between beliefs and bigotry is drawn is at the point that you launch a full-blown campaign against what is obviously a human rights issue and essentially paint LGBTQ individuals as somehow less human than straight Americans -- especially when your only argument to explain why marriage is between a man and a woman is because "there's something special" that happens. I'd argue that, first of all, there's something special in every romantic relationship, otherwise, you'd just be fucking friends (you know, without the fucking). It seems to fly right over Brian Brown's head that denying marriage equality, is exactly the same as the "separate but equal" Jim Crowe laws prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Instead of a racial issue, sexual preference is now how we subjugate minority groups and treat them as if they are less than human.

The second thing is Dan Savage's initial thesis: that the Christian church has cherry-picked the parts of the Bible that it chooses to conform to, and brushes off the other parts as out-dated, misinterpreted, or just no longer applicable. And, to echo Dan Savage is a less respectful, less patient manner: Why the fuck can't we apply that same selective disregard to the parts of the Bible that call same-sex sex immoral, or a hell-worthy offense?

In the end, the only thing that matters is this: no matter what you believe about marriage, there is absolutely no reason that this should be presented as a legal issue. It is absurd that we have to argue about whether or not same sex marriage needs to be specified in the law. So much is spent on an issue that should, ultimately, be a no-brainer. This is not a religious issue, it is quite simply a civil rights issue.

Brian Brown also argues that marriage is important because it is the connection between parents for kids. How many thousands, fuck that, MILLIONS of single mothers and fathers, or grandparents acting as parents, or foster parents, or whatever else are out there? The sanctity of marriage is already fucked as is. Divorce rates in America are off the charts, children born to single parents is astronomical, and there are thousands of unwanted children born each year. The only thing that marriage equality changes, really, is that more children would have access to two-parent households, and how can that ever be a bad thing?

When they talk about how children in traditional households fair better, I think they're misinterpreting the data. I don't think it's an issue of having a male and female parent, but rather having TWO parents, working together. Gender, in that sense, doesn't matter. Parenting alone is hard -- having a partner makes it easier. Any child in a stable environment with a loving parent (or two) is lucky and blessed to have that -- who gives a shit what their gender is?

Seriously, can we stop talking about this and just let it happen already?

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/states/ These states have -- and shockingly, none have them have burned to the ground, erupted in complete anarchy, or allowed anyone to marry a horse (what a stupid fucking argument that is).

I probably need to apologize a little for this entry -- I get a little riled up about this issue. I have close friends who I would do literally anything for who will never get married in the state that we live in -- and it breaks my heart, especially as I plan my own wedding. My partner and I have been together for nearly five years, and are lucky enough to be able to make it a legal union, while my friends in same-sex relationships who have been together LONGER and have more interest in having children than we do, can't even get a fucking domestic partnership. Absurd.