no longer on the fence

on July 24, NY legalized gay marriage. yup, i'm bringing this up again.

i'm tired of being on the fence about this. i don't like the torn feeling i get inside whenever i read about gay marriage. i wish i saw this as black and white as it seems many already do, but it is very grey to me. not long ago, interracial marriage was a heated discussion, and how crazy is it to think that anyone would protest Sam and i from getting married?

i've done a lot of thinking, and i've finally come to some conclusions that i am happy with and that gives my little heart a sense of peace.

first of all, if we are going to start at the beginning, when you put a man and a woman together, they can make a baby. a male plus a female equals the creation of life. whether you believe in God or not, you can't argue with nature. whether it's people, micro-organisms, trees, daffodils, cats or dogs, you have to have a male and a female to procreate the next generation of life.

i think that those who support marriage as only being between a man and a woman are arguing that that is how God, or "nature," intended things to be. because marriage is much more than about love, it's also about establishing a family unit, having kids and stuff, and raising them to be the next generation of a community/society. the next president, the next Steve Jobs, the next doctors and teachers. technically, two men or two women put together cannot make a baby. so when people say that gay marriage is an "attack on the family," i think that is perhaps what they are referring to???

on the other hand, obviously we live in modern times, and it is possible for two men or two women to start a family. there's in-vitro, surrogacy and adoption. anybody who wants to have children can, which is really a wonderful blessing. well, that is unless you are still in high school.

gay marriage supporters argue that it isn't fair to gay couples that they are not allowed to receive the same rights and benefits from the law/government that straight married couples receive. they say that gay couples who are committed to each other for life just want to be treated like any other married couple under the law. yes, why not? equality for all. no discrimination. basic human rights, i get all that. i don't see anything wrong with it.

what is more important to me is, are gay couples who are granted the benefits of marriage willing to take on the responsibility that marriage requires of them? one of those being an obligation to start a family? or maybe that's just me to think that it is even an obligation at all? maybe i shouldn't word it that way. how about "opportunity"? but that's not right either, being unmarried hasn't stopped anybody from having children.

well, anyway, i'd like to think that many gay couples want children. of course, we all know it's not required by law that every married couple must have children, but it's kind of expected that they will ...

(and for those who say, "there's already too many kids, the world is over-populated," well, once you figure out a way to get those extra millions of kids to the U.S. and teach them what it's like to live in America and convince them to take care of you when you're older, let me know.)

(and, for those who don't want children, i'm not trying to attack you. if you don't want them, i don't want you to have them either.)

ok, so what i'm trying to say is, if a major purpose of marriage is to reproduce and have a family which is that fundamental unit of society, and gay couples can do that just as well as straight couples with today's modern technology, and they WANT to have families, why stop them? with marriage on the decline, and having children on the decline, if gay couples want to step in and help us pro-marriage and pro-family people out, please! welcome to our world. and just think, if lots of gay couples decided to adopt children, oh my gosh, now that is when i will be crying tears of joy. so many children need loving homes and parents.

i've said this before in my first post about gay marriage (and here's my second post), i don't think it's fair to say that anything other than a mom, dad and kids is not a family. i do think that a child with his/her mom and dad to raise them is ideal, but that is not the only successful way.

what upsets me about this whole issue is the hate and bashing that goes on from both sides. and it also upsets me that kids right now who are raised over-conservatively while these issues of gay marriage are so prevalent are growing up thinking gay people are bad, or that something is wrong with gay people, or worse, that they think they are somehow better than gay people. it is not cool to judge people like that.

so, in conclusion, i support the legalization of gay marriage because i am pro-family and pro-equality. the same reasons why i would support the legalization of interracial marriages 50 years ago (yes, only 50). and no, i am not supporting this because i want to appear like i'm so cool, or so i can be seen as one of those liberal, i'm so open-minded, creative types. this is serious, and very close to my heart.

hold on though. at the same time, i still have my religious beliefs, and that may seem hard to understand for a lot of you. i believe in a God that created man and woman with specific gender identities, and that His definition of marriage is between a man and woman only. i don't understand why there are same-sex preferences if God did not intend them to be that way, but i have to have faith that there is an explanation for everything because i know that God loves all of His children. i would hope that people who don't believe as i do would respect my beliefs and appreciate that i am not trying to impose them on the rest of the world.