Gay Marriage: Waking the American Conscience

Despite the recent outcome on Proposition 8 in California, I believe that the American conscience has awakened concerning the right of gay people to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this country.  Yes, there remain groups of people who would deny gays their human rights out of fear, blind adherence to religious dogma, or a simple hatred of what they don’t understand, but those groups are shrinking. 

The American conscience has awakened because gay people themselves are refusing to accept the lies that have defined them, lies that have branded them as promiscuous, untrustworthy, perverted, and dangerous.  They are standing up with pride and kicking aside the old caricatures.  They are our neighbors and our family members, our leaders and our warriors.  They are demanding our respect, and rightfully so.

I say “rightfully so” because it is immoral to dehumanize a group of innocent people in order to subject them to discriminatory, abusive laws.  Anti-gay religious folks who attempt to condemn a biological minority to a life unfulfilled will one day recognize their own immorality, as they think more deeply about the issue.  People of true faith and conscience will feel ashamed of their efforts to marginalize instead of understand.

The argument that God hates gays is only relevant for adherents of those particular doctrines.  The Christian God I was introduced to as a child was a powerful spirit of love, inclusiveness, and understanding, not a sneering, self-righteous hate monger; hatred was in the devil’s domain.  Besides, America’s separation of church and state renders theological arguments irrelevant. 

Does gay marriage threaten the sanctity of the traditional union, as some claim?  No. How could gays diminish the institution of marriage any more than heterosexuals already have?  Every week new tales of adultery, spousal murder, and family abuse fill the headlines.  Marriage is what each couple makes it.  That is equally true for both gay and heterosexual couples.

America’s stance on gay marriage has been inconsistent with its stance on human rights.  Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges equal entitlement to the rights defined in that document, including Article 16, the right to marry and found a family:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Although not all opponents of gay rights would state it in these terms, they believe a gay person is a fraction of a human being—a subhuman.  Gays are entitled to a subset of human rights, but as a defective class of human beings, they have become the state sanctioned heirs of discrimination by virtue of biological endowment.  Thankfully, this oppression is on the way out, as it is becoming glaringly apparent that the defective ones are those with the inability to accept the full range of caring human feelings and behavior.  More good news is that it is a defect that can be overcome with a willingness to learn and a true spirit of good will.