by Terry Donelson

Created on: June 15, 2009   Last Updated: June 20, 2009

At one point of his bid to be Texas' governor in 2006, Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman, one of the state's undeniably more colorful characters, was asked his position on the legalization of gay marriage. His response was "gay people should have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us."

While I would argue that not all married people are miserable, I do agree with his position that gay men and women should have the same shot at misery as any heterosexual couple, as well as the same shot at happiness.

As with the ongoing debate over the legality of abortion, but for organized religion there would be no debate over whether gay people should have the right to marry. The fundamentalist, right wing, religious faction that is fighting so hard to deny gays their rights is the same one that, in the not so distant past, fought hard to deny women and black Americans their right to vote and own property.

As a seven year old boy growing up in west Texas, one of my saddest memories is of the time my grandfather, one of the most religious men I've ever known (he reportedly read the bible from cover to cover seven times in his lifetime), took me to a small, parking lot carnival. I remember standing in line to ride a two-seater airplane ride. I was near the front of the line behind a little black boy and knew that I would be in the next group to get to ride. Sure enough, when the attendant opened the gate and started letting us in, he motioned to me and the boy in front to get on the same ride. I distinctly remember my grandfather trying to grab me to keep me from getting on the ride with that black kid. I was too fast, though. I slipped him and got on. He was furious with me; and while he didn't say anything, took me straight home as soon as the ride stopped.

Especially in the south of the early 1960's, my grandfather was certainly not alone; for whites to consider black people to be inferior was just a given.

My suspicion is that most people, thirty years from now, will no more question the right of gays to marry than they question today whether interracial marriage should be legal. Prior to the 1967 Supreme Court Case "Loving v. Virginia," even the right to marry outside of one's race was still illegal in many states; I am not proud to admit that Texas was among them. The question is - who will be the target of religious discrimination in the future?

Who will the second class citizens, the deviants, the outcasts, and the sinners be? Who will the evangelicals

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