by John Petty

Created on: October 21, 2008   Last Updated: January 19, 2009

Years from now, I fully believe that this debate, so heated and contentious today, will be viewed with the same disdain as "Should women be allowed to vote," and "Should slavery be abolished," are currently. No one today would ever argue the negative side of those questions, and hopefully this issue will soon join them as one of the foregoneconclusionsof an increasingly enlightened society.

This is not a religious issue, as no one religion can claim to haveownershipof the concept of marriage. The ability to celebrate a union between two people is practiced in every culture in the world, so to insist that marriage must be a union between a man and a womanbecausethat's the way the Judeo-Christian faith describes it, is a fallacious argument on its face. As a society, we have long recognized the rights of people to marry without the involvement of any church or religious body whatsoever - so-called "civil unions" - so why now does the Conservative Christian movement insist that marriage is a purely religious institution and must adhere to the concepts set down in the Christian Bible?

Looking at the question from another angle, it's not so long ago that marriages between people of two races was illegal. "Miscegenation" was a crime worthy of lynching, especially in many of America's Southern states. Would anyone care to argue that a black man and a white woman, for example, be legally barred from marrying today? Hopefully not. And yet, many intelligent, educated, otherwisethoughtfuland caring people have no problem with loudly andpubliclysupporting discrimination against same sex couples, even though few, if any, proponents of a ban on same-sex marriage can offer even a single cogent argument relating to any real way in which such a union would negatively impact their lives.

We, as a society, have rejected the custom of arranged marriages - still prevalent in other parts of the world - proudlyproclaimingthat people, women particularly, should be free to wed whomsoever they chose. As long as their choice is someone of the opposite sex. "You can marry whoever you want," they seem to say, "as long as we approve of your choice." Of course, were one to question their choice of spouse ("I don't think you should be allowed to marry so-and-so, since he/she just isn't right for you"), you can be assured that they would instantly stand on their "rights" and insist the person that dared to meddle in their personal affairs mind their own business.

Sadly, this is only the latest form of accepted bigotry to sweep the nation in the wake of the current trend towards Neo-Conservatism. It's not OK to be racist anymore, nor can one discriminate against people based on their faith or their physical disability. We've passed laws preventing such societal hatreds. Unfortunately, it's still all right to discriminate on people based on their sexual orientation, based on intolerant religious teachings. Of course, those teachings come from the same Bible that says, "Judge not lest ye be judged," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself," but those teachings seem to go out the window when discussing the issue of marriage.

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