That was the title on the cover of Newsweek
Magazine last week. It may not have been clear why William Jefferson Clinton
was touted the First Black President, but Barack Obama can claim the title of
First Gay President, by being the first President to officially endorse gay
marriage, while seeing the center of American polled opinion shifts squarely to
the left on this topic. Indeed, 57% of Americans support the idea of gay
marriage.
It is arguable that marriage should be defined as the union between a man and a woman. In that context, all other partnerships should be named whatever our society chooses; not that there are any scarcity of words or possibilities for neologism in the English language.
The distinctive designation would have nothing to do with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) nation's civil rights and privileges. It would have everything to do with having a name designating what it means: When we say marriage, we should know it is about a man and a woman. When we say civil union, legal bonding, rainbow tie, or simply gayage, we would refer to a variant of a loving human relationship legally concretized.
The President is leading the polls at the electoral college (the only one that counts) by 284-170. Therefore, Barack Obama's decision to go full fledge with what half of the states of the union and half of the modern countries in the world have already decided is a fair thing do. It was not a reaction to electoral politics, but a slow process that started with the demolition of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the military and the refusal of the federal government to continue the legal defense of the marriage act (DOMA).
However the 22% of American who are marginal, staunch conservatives are enraged over the President's decision to join the rest of the nation. They see waving over our heads the Damocles' sword of another atomic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that this time would be Paris and New York, with every city, north, south, west, east and in between. This propaganda aiming at painting the gay community as devilish, orchestrated by the religious right, runs against all statistics and sciences. It is eerily stunning that the Pope who has never had sex, and who is not supposed to have sex, wants to be the decider in chief on who can have sex with whom.
Forever, and ever, in all human societies, 10% of the population have always been affected by a genetic mutation (or aberration) that makes them be sexually attracted to sameness; as much as 1% has always been affected by vitiligo. Do you remember when you made your choice of sexual orientation? At the age of 6, you developed your first crush, no one ever decided if this crush goes toward a male or a female. It just happens; and when it happens to be an homosexual attraction, the young boy or girl starts on the path of a life of duplicity, dissimulation, shame that is in par with what all minorities must go through in their need to fit in the mainstream. Who wants to be an outcast on the school yard? Who wants to be beaten, maimed, killed for love?
In essence, Obama, a decent human being, understands what most of us understand. We don't want to see two guys kissing; it looks yacky; almost as yacky for some to see a black guy kissing a white girl. Both actions, once upon a time, would have condemned their perpetrators to lynching. In America, that has to stop, the physical lynching, as much as the intellectual lynching. We need to stop the moral peeping through others' window, and not liking what we have no business watching.
In a world where hate, discrimination, religious dissent run havoc and kill millions, we should be happy to see people loving each other and fighting to get married, instead of fighting for territory, petroleum, diamond, or heroin. Let homosexuals get married, they have the right to experience the boredom endured by the heterosexual world.
In all legitimacy, while the definition of marriage is being extended, one can anxiously wonder where it all stops, on the name of freedom and self-determination. Can brothers marry their sisters? Can uncles marry their nieces? Can three people, four people get married? Can animal lovers marry their dogs and cats, their cow or their butterfly?
Can your daughter marry a Venusian when these guys start visiting us? The answers to these five questions would be YES, NO, NO, NO, and I don't know.
Our freedom ends where starts someone else's: our freedom restricts us from doing anything that encroaches on someone's else freedom and rights. It has been demonstrated that sex among siblings causes severe genetic defects leading to stillborn babies, early death, or a miserable life. The kids of Adam and Eve, sisters and brothers who had sex and babies with each other must have been the exception to this rule; they did not have much choice of sex partners. Therefore, it is fair and just that society protects itself and prohibits this kind of union between first degree relatives (incest). On the same vein, society has to imprison serial killers. despite the fact that they also are victims of their genetic aberration; the problem is, serial killers kill innocent people; they must be taken off the streets. Citizens who, for the same reasons, tend only to kill themselves can go free.
Barring the above, one should feel free to marry cousin Marco, uncle Ted, and Aunt Aida, as long as both spouses are older than 18, and deemed able to choose the leaders of their country; in many cultures, these intra-family marriages are common. It should also be your free choice to take your cat, your butterfly or your frying pan as your legal spouse, and to cherish and protect her in the good and bad days until death takes you apart. Who should have problems with that? But, by the power invested in the celebrant, beware that cats, butterflies and frying pans will not help you paying the bills.
Should my daughter marry a Venusian who has just landed in his flying saucer? I don't know, I really don't know. If he looks like the alien guys in Avatar, 12-foot tall, green, not wearing any designer clothes, I would go for a resounding NO. I don't have any problem with white, black, brown, or yellow people. I have white friends, black friends, brown friends, and yellow friends. But green people, I think they are bad; they stink, and they steal your stuff....
(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Tuesday, May 22, 2012)
It is arguable that marriage should be defined as the union between a man and a woman. In that context, all other partnerships should be named whatever our society chooses; not that there are any scarcity of words or possibilities for neologism in the English language.
The distinctive designation would have nothing to do with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) nation's civil rights and privileges. It would have everything to do with having a name designating what it means: When we say marriage, we should know it is about a man and a woman. When we say civil union, legal bonding, rainbow tie, or simply gayage, we would refer to a variant of a loving human relationship legally concretized.
The President is leading the polls at the electoral college (the only one that counts) by 284-170. Therefore, Barack Obama's decision to go full fledge with what half of the states of the union and half of the modern countries in the world have already decided is a fair thing do. It was not a reaction to electoral politics, but a slow process that started with the demolition of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the military and the refusal of the federal government to continue the legal defense of the marriage act (DOMA).
However the 22% of American who are marginal, staunch conservatives are enraged over the President's decision to join the rest of the nation. They see waving over our heads the Damocles' sword of another atomic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that this time would be Paris and New York, with every city, north, south, west, east and in between. This propaganda aiming at painting the gay community as devilish, orchestrated by the religious right, runs against all statistics and sciences. It is eerily stunning that the Pope who has never had sex, and who is not supposed to have sex, wants to be the decider in chief on who can have sex with whom.
Forever, and ever, in all human societies, 10% of the population have always been affected by a genetic mutation (or aberration) that makes them be sexually attracted to sameness; as much as 1% has always been affected by vitiligo. Do you remember when you made your choice of sexual orientation? At the age of 6, you developed your first crush, no one ever decided if this crush goes toward a male or a female. It just happens; and when it happens to be an homosexual attraction, the young boy or girl starts on the path of a life of duplicity, dissimulation, shame that is in par with what all minorities must go through in their need to fit in the mainstream. Who wants to be an outcast on the school yard? Who wants to be beaten, maimed, killed for love?
In essence, Obama, a decent human being, understands what most of us understand. We don't want to see two guys kissing; it looks yacky; almost as yacky for some to see a black guy kissing a white girl. Both actions, once upon a time, would have condemned their perpetrators to lynching. In America, that has to stop, the physical lynching, as much as the intellectual lynching. We need to stop the moral peeping through others' window, and not liking what we have no business watching.
In a world where hate, discrimination, religious dissent run havoc and kill millions, we should be happy to see people loving each other and fighting to get married, instead of fighting for territory, petroleum, diamond, or heroin. Let homosexuals get married, they have the right to experience the boredom endured by the heterosexual world.
In all legitimacy, while the definition of marriage is being extended, one can anxiously wonder where it all stops, on the name of freedom and self-determination. Can brothers marry their sisters? Can uncles marry their nieces? Can three people, four people get married? Can animal lovers marry their dogs and cats, their cow or their butterfly?
Can your daughter marry a Venusian when these guys start visiting us? The answers to these five questions would be YES, NO, NO, NO, and I don't know.
Our freedom ends where starts someone else's: our freedom restricts us from doing anything that encroaches on someone's else freedom and rights. It has been demonstrated that sex among siblings causes severe genetic defects leading to stillborn babies, early death, or a miserable life. The kids of Adam and Eve, sisters and brothers who had sex and babies with each other must have been the exception to this rule; they did not have much choice of sex partners. Therefore, it is fair and just that society protects itself and prohibits this kind of union between first degree relatives (incest). On the same vein, society has to imprison serial killers. despite the fact that they also are victims of their genetic aberration; the problem is, serial killers kill innocent people; they must be taken off the streets. Citizens who, for the same reasons, tend only to kill themselves can go free.
Barring the above, one should feel free to marry cousin Marco, uncle Ted, and Aunt Aida, as long as both spouses are older than 18, and deemed able to choose the leaders of their country; in many cultures, these intra-family marriages are common. It should also be your free choice to take your cat, your butterfly or your frying pan as your legal spouse, and to cherish and protect her in the good and bad days until death takes you apart. Who should have problems with that? But, by the power invested in the celebrant, beware that cats, butterflies and frying pans will not help you paying the bills.
Should my daughter marry a Venusian who has just landed in his flying saucer? I don't know, I really don't know. If he looks like the alien guys in Avatar, 12-foot tall, green, not wearing any designer clothes, I would go for a resounding NO. I don't have any problem with white, black, brown, or yellow people. I have white friends, black friends, brown friends, and yellow friends. But green people, I think they are bad; they stink, and they steal your stuff....
(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Tuesday, May 22, 2012)
