Shame On Texas!

We have many people to thank who monitor the state of political affairs for BLGTQAIB peoples. Five points extra credit for correctly identifying all of the letters in the above acronym. I will be periodically offering extra credit points to those people who read my blog and answer my little bits of trivia. They mean nothing at the moment, however I might just come up with a reward for the top sleuth.

For those of you who do not monitor the daily gay times of internet extractions, Texas yesterday, Monday, November 8, 2004 anounced that it is proposing an amendment to the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. This all in the wake of last week's election in which referendums in 11 states passed to ban gay marriage and in 8 states civil-unions and domestic partnerships. Here is the list of states in which gay people are now unrecognized by the state:

1) Arkansas
2) Georgia
3) Kentucky
4) Michigan
5) Mississippi
6) Montana
7) North Dakota
8) Oklahoma
9) Ohio
10) Utah
11) Oregon

Texas aims to be number twelve. Rep. Warren Chisum Republic of Pampa, Texas who proposed the amendment is hoping to send a message to Washington that Texans support a similar amendment at the federal level. He sees gay marriage across this country as a sign of its deterioration. I see gay marriage as a sign of enlightenment.

This sentiment is commonly echoed in conservative media, particularly talk radio dominated by the Rush Limbaugh variety. I will freely admit I listen to his show. I know many of my liberal friends abhor the very mention of Mr. Limbaugh's name, however old Rushbo has become a useful demonstration and spokes person who does very much represent the current trend in politics with respect to the current Republican regime. Rush in conjunction with help from his callers often champions this new conservative revolution as the doing of alternative media sources like talk radio. Rush is of coarse the founder of it all, talent on loan from God. I am more than willing to give Rush whatever credit he claims for this revolution, indeed I think he deserves it.

His show has recently included lively discussion on the same-sex marriage debate. The conclusion of this discussion is that heterosexuals, man and woman, have a right to have an institution that is uniquely for them. Marriage for these Republicans, religious leaders, communities, and organizations is being strictly defined as the union between a man and a woman, nothing else.

President Bush has repeatedly cited that the dictionary posits that if you look up the meaning of the word marriage it will tell you that it is between a man and a woman. What Mr. Bush fails to point out is a very simple lexicographical principle: marriage as defined by which ever dictionary he used is what the word marriage meant at the time of that book's publication. What Mr. Bush fails to recognize is that gay rights people are not trying to redefine the institution of marriage, common everyday fags are doing it one couple at a time. Conservatives seem to largely ignore the real question of what exactly constitutes a marriage? A common law analysis would generously support the proposition that many gay couples are for all intensive purposes married. Traditionally, a marriage is a contract between two people, a man and a woman. Traditionally, this contact is conducted by the contracting parties through the application of a marriage license, a ceremony, and the exchange of the contractual obligations (vows). Tradition is not necessarily law unless enacted or written so, and certainly not in America, the home of free speach and freedom of expression in general.

Given that we have a certain freedom of expression in this country, more commonly understood as liberty, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. The problem with liberty for the conservatives in our country is that it is understood, preserved, and delegated within a system of liberalism. Liberalism used here with a lower case "l" denotes not the quality of being "Liberal" as it is commonly understood, but rather the principled frame work set forth by John Locke and the founders of our country notably Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Patrick Henry. On March 23, 1775 Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Liberalism will always defer matters of personal freedom to the individual. When a particular policy, law, or regulation infringes, unduly, unequally, or unnecessarily, it is not in keeping with the liberal tradition that our fundamental rights as Americans rest upon, that our forefathers shed blood for. It cannot be said to be a liberal thought to limit or legislate against liberty. The limitation of expression is for a different school of thought - fascism.

It should give us pause and great concern that anyone in this country is so disposed as to limit the liberty of their neighbors when it comes to defining something as personal as marriage. We the people in this country are not constricted to the definition of marriage as laid out by any particular book, religion, or president. Marriage will for always be how each and every couple defines it for themselves. Our founders may not have supported abortion, same-sex marriage, or even the unbridled expansion of the bureaucracy; however they did stand for personal freedom or liberty. They died so that we might be free. They knew that whether they had to endure the chance that personal choices that others made in their lives directly conflicted with their own personal values that to fundamentally limit those people's freedom was a direct threat to their own freedom. That is the truth. That is the simple truth of the founding of our county: to limit the freedom or liberty of even one person was to cause irreparable harm to the whole. We still struggle with the racial issues caused by slavery and continued rampant discrimination that followed. We refused to allow black people to marry white people then, we refuse to allow same-sex attracted people to marry now. Slavery is at the very best a scar on our nation. If slavery is a scar, then the oppression of gay people is a bleeding wound.

It should be particularly offensive to Liberals today that they are charged with being Godless and amoral. Liberalism as set forth by our founders in this country is based off of a very Christian premise that all humans are created equal. We call this concept human dignity. Rep. Warren Chisum's remark that amending the Texas constitution is a biblical issue is a complete misunderstanding of what is at the core of the Christian message. Jesus said to love one another. I do not intend to take this passage out of context or to separate it from its place in scripture, however loving one another and preserving a person's inherent right to life, liberty, and property are much more closely related than legislating a particular moral belief upon a specific group of people. The bible is not merely a set of delineated instructions on exactly how one is supposed to live their life. The bible, particularly Christianity, assumes that humans have free will, freedom, over their destiny. To be a Christian you must have real choice. Whatever the merits of same-sex marriage are or are not, it should not be prevented in even the Christian sense because free will is a gift from God. Maintaining that freedom, free will, for all humans is of a particular responsibility for anyone who calls themselves a Christian. It is a far greater responsibility than righteousness on a particular issue. Especially issues so fundamentally tied to personal, individual choice like marriage.

To Summarize:

What has Texas given us?

1) Not so long ago the case Lawrence v. Texas was decided by the Supreme Court. They found in favor of a gay man, Lawrence, who was arrested and dragged from his home because he was a homosexual.

2) Texas has produced a president who champions an amendment to our U. S. Constitution that threatens to harm the fundamental rights of everyone.

3) Texas has reinforced its continued value that gay people should not be treated as equals under the law, biding to be the 12th state to discriminate unnecessarily against its citizens.

A note to Texas: equality is not defined by those on the outside looking in, but rather from those people inside looking out. Marriage equality is to be defined not by a legislature, a referendum vote, or constitutional amendment. Marriage is defined by whoever chooses to marry.

Texas, as described by its Republican representatives, would seem not to be in keeping with the fundamental American values that provide for its own continued existence as a free people. They should think twice before limiting the freedom of others. Once freedom is lost, it is even more expensive to replace. The freedom that has been fought for in years past in this country was an investment in the future of this nation for better or worse. For anyone to infringe on this freedom is to have made our forepersons have suffered in vain. It makes the suffering of our troops in Iraq inconsequential. It gives America a black eye.