Activism one person at a time...

For some reason, unbeknown to me, I seem to have very strong convictions about individual equalities and freedoms. Thus, living and voting in California this year was a special treat. I did what I could to fight for equality -- out there on election day (100 ft from the polling center, not being belligerent, as some less empathetic people claimed). Needless to say, I sent a few ripples through my family.

My Dad is a good man, but tends to drift towards homophobia, and my Mother is a religious woman. Now the election is long over, but over a recent dinner my mom brought up my views on gay marriage to my aunt. Low and behold, for both of them, their sticking point was, like many people's, about the use of the word marriage (my aunt in question is even more religious than my mother). They both felt gay individuals should be allowed to have "civil unions" (for a lack of a better word) that granted them exactly the same rights and privileges as marriage does.

I so my short speech began -- and to be honest I think I may have swayed my mom. I pointed out that in America, separate is not equal. Calling something a different name, but giving it the same qualities, makes it different. The problem for some people, is that marriage by definition, a religious definition, means between a man and a woman. Now, the last I checked, there was a separation of church and state in this country, and for the state marriage is a "contract" (again for a better lack of a term) that grants couples many, many rights and privileges. Rights in a court of law. Rights to make decisions for each other. Rights to file taxes, etc.

So the problem becomes that the same word has to be applied to the same rights. People can all undergo civil unions in the eyes of the government, and marriage can be left as a decision for each minister/pastor of each congregation. Or marriage can adopt a second meaning. There isn't many other ways around it. Sounds easy right? I wish...

And that doesn't even cover the people out there who believe homosexuality is a sin. Or that that gay people choose to be like that. As Jon Stewart put it "religion is far more of choice than homosexuality."