It’s All About Love…

I’ve recently learned that President Obama has come out openly in support of same sex marriage. Not just that, but he’s the first president on record to have done so. As someone who’s gay, that makes me incredibly happy. As someone who’s a human being, that makes me incredibly happy as well. As happy as that makes me, It saddens me that people out there such as…Rush Limbaugh have nothing better to do than make statements like: “We’ve arrived at a point where the President of the United States is going to lead a war on traditional marriage.” Now, while it’s every person’s right to have whatever opinion they might, there’s no reason to start hooting and hollering simply because the President has seen fit to acknowledge that same sex couples, just as everyone else, deserve the right to be married. Not have “domestic partnerships” or any such thing, but to be married. As little a word it may be, in this case, it carries something  tremendous. That tremendous thing is love.

This “war on marriage” as it’s being called is in truth is nothing short of a farce waged by the very people who make statements like that made by Mr. Limbaugh. If your idea of traditional marriage means having 2 or more ex wives/ex husbands and a slew of children left in the wake of the dysfunction that often follows,  then who’s to say such a fictitious “war” shouldn’t be waged? When it comes to the notion of marriage, a joining of the body and the soul, it is an intimate and spiritual institution; not one to be decided on by organized religion or petty little men and women who can’t see past their own bigotry and ignorance of the rights of all men and women. Marriage is love, and love predates governments and organized religion. If a man loves a man.. no… if a person loves a person, no matter their gender, they should be able to be wed; reaping all the benefits and responsibility that comes with it. If this were merely a matter of being unfit to be wed, there are many (In heterosexual marriages) whose marriage would be deemed invalid. Marriage is something based on love in its purest and simplest form. Not on laws and rules enforced by people who honestly know nothing of those who wish to be wed.

I’ll just close with this. If you don’t like the idea of David and Jim or Samantha and Ruth getting married, then you’re entitled to that opinion. But nowhere in that entitlement do you have the right to persecute David and Jim or Samantha and Ruth. Ask yourself this question… and think about it seriously and answer it honestly… If you were David, Jim, Samantha, or Ruth and all you wanted was an affirmation of your love for whomever it is or was that you loved and you were denied that right by some group of people because their religion won’t allow it and says it’s wrong… how would you feel? If one of your children who you love with all your heart (as any good parent does) or a niece or nephew was to tell you they wanted to get married to a member of the same sex who they were truly and deeply in love with, would you turn your back on them? Denying them something as basic yet important as love?