I’m going to show you two emails. The first was written and sent by a young man from Iowa named Robert. His email, sent to a variety of friends, family, and acquaintances, was in regard to the recent gay marriage rulings in Iowa and later Vermont.
All:
The Iowa Supreme Court recently ruled that marriage is to be between two adults.
Reading the news and some of the comments from religious types and self-titled “holy roller” conservatives and that of progressive yuppie liberals on this ruling, I find it absurd that this issue has a right vs. left mentality. Having laws that discriminate against a minority of individuals is a law against humanity. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the standing law inhibiting two men or two women to marry was a breach on their civil rights and thus needed to change to ensure the disenfranchised gay community be entirely apart of the Iowa community.
This is a civil rights law that does not breach the Constitutional guarantee of the separation between Church and State. This will not affect the Church's rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The Church cannot be forced to marry gays and lesbians just as it cannot be forced to employ women or non-Catholics as priests.
It was not long ago that women were disenfranchised-sub citizens inside the United States. African Americans, less than 50 years ago had laws placed against their basic human rights.
Iowa, in the past, was a leader in the progressive movement, Iowa schools were desegregated 100 years before Brown v. Board of Education ruled that "separate but equal" was not constitutional, desegrating all US schools.
Iowa, was one of the first states to assure all men and women be guaranteed equal rights to public transportation, women to serve on juries and practice law, and one of the first states to make it a crime for businesses to refuse service to anyone based on their race.
While many states had laws making interracial marriage illegal, Iowa, due to its open marriage act, welcomed those in love to get married in Iowa just as we do today.
None of those land mark civil rights victories can be thought today as corrupting our American morals, even though prior to the equal rights laws taking affect, it was apart of our US culture and the American idea, that women were not considered human enough to vote or blacks were considered apart of a sub culture, and some Christians thought a white woman should never be allowed to marry a black man.
This new ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court does not infringe on your rights or inhibit you and your faith from going about its business. In fact it only ensures that all adult women and men have the right to marry the person they love.
The below link is telling and wonderfully elaborates the important history of Iowa's progress look on civil rights.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/9/718107/-NY-Times-op-ed-all-should-read:-Iowa-Family-Values
Peace,
Robert
Now, the next email was sent by Robert’s soon-to-be father-in-law, named Brian. Brian sent a response email to Robert, as well as to everyone else that was on Robert’s original email distribution list. Brian had no qualms about sharing his viewpoint amongst a large amount of strangers, so I have no problem sharing his email with you:
Dear Rob,
It is with great sadness that I read your e-mail. God created marriage not the Government. Governments merely accepted it as right and legalized what God ordained. What this does is legitimizes their way of life, creating a platform to procreate through other peoples children since they cannot further their perverted lifestyle any other way...yes, they want your children, they have no other way of getting children to further their lifestyle. Surely you believe Gods word, Romans Chapter...perhaps you need to reread it. If they want a "life-partner" then let them live in their sin but to soil the sanctity of marriage so they can claim health benefits, make people recognize them, and raise children in their "wholesome ways" is just plain BS. Don't call good, evil and evil, good. I stand in opposition to your view point on this matter. I will however keep you in my prayers...may God make his will clearly known to you.
Love,
Brian
The following is my personal email response to Brian.
Dear Brian,
You do not know me, nor will you ever meet me. Long story, short: the reason that I know you is entirely due to the fact that you “responded to all” when replying to an email from your future son-in-law, Robert, that was sent to his family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, many of which you do not personally know. Your email was then, often in dismay, forwarded on to others, including myself. So, here I am. Since you had no issue with openly broadcasting your opinions with anonymous strangers, I have no issue with returning the favor. Here goes…
After reading your email, I could not stop thinking about what you had said. It haunted me. It nagged me. It really, really, really bothered me. When you said, “it is with great sadness that I read your e-mail,” I too encountered the same feeling, although I think my own sadness ran much deeper. Therefore I felt it completely necessary to respond to you, if only as a means to continue my life without having to think about you or your email ever again.
Robert’s email reflected a new found joy in state government: finally, expanded rights to all citizens. Legal, non-discriminatory rights now apply to a whole people, equally, and are not based on religious traditions or social norms. To him, it was a triumph worth celebrating or, at the very least, respecting (after all, Robert is heterosexual and therefore can claim little benefit from this ruling, other than it affirms what he personally believes is fair and just). Robert thoughtfully expressed his humbled gratitude toward both Iowa and Vermont for having taken proactive steps to legally incorporate marriage rights, both into and under the protection of the constitution, on behalf of all state citizens, including specific minorities, i.e. homosexual men and women. Full circle, every citizen now has the recognized right to be married under the law regardless of his or her race or sexual orientation. Finally.
This incorporation seems fitting, especially since each state is home to a plethora of races, religions, and sexual orientations. Obviously, not everyone is Caucasian, not everyone believes in the same God, or perhaps in God at all, and not everyone is heterosexual. Therefore, I can easily understand why Robert is elated that more and more state governments are choosing to protect and serve all of their citizens, not just the citizens the Constitution deemed “worthy” in 1787. The constitution is slowly being re-evaluated and adapted to consistently ensure that basic civil rights under legal law (not the law of your God) are barred from no one and that justice and opportunity are afforded to every one, equally, regardless of social prejudice or religious interpretation. That’s the real purpose of the constitution, right? To serve the people, not to serve God. God has his own constitution that you can choose to follow, or not. Let’s not get the two confused.
Concerning your open email, you are obviously a very religious man with a strong spiritual background. We have that in common––I was raised a good, Catholic boy all the way into adulthood. Even to this very day, I continue on a spiritual journey. While this journey may stray from my traditional, Catholic upbringing, my quest for spiritual enlightenment is stronger than ever. For your information, I wholeheartedly believe in God. However, my God is different from your God. Actually, my interpretation of God is extremely different than yours, the variance being that I do not fear my God and I do not live my life in hope of acceptance into heaven as an eternal reward. I also do not judge, demean, or prophesize hate against those whom are different from me or view the world differently. I do not know what religion you follow, but if your opinion on gay marriage (and gay people in general) derives from your religious studies, I can respect that. But at the same time, I can’t respect unabashed ignorance, superiority, and outright bigotry, all of which I perceived in your email.
Specifically, your condescending and dehumanizing religious perspective of homosexual men and women is absolutely horrifying and certainly not characteristic of the word of God. In fact, you carelessly refer to homosexuals as “evil.” Evil, really? A man loving another man, or a woman loving another woman…that’s evil? That’s not evil, Brian. It’s not evil at all, and I’ll explain why. You coin homosexuality as a lifestyle, as if it were a simple choice that men and women consciously decide upon at some point in their life. Let’s be real here––no one would willingly choose to be gay. If every one had the choice between being heterosexual or homosexual, no one in their right mind would choose to be homosexual or to live a “homosexual lifestyle.” No one would choose to be a minority, a second-class citizen, an outcast. No one would choose to be denounced, degraded, belittled, and shamelessly hated by an individual such as yourself, and plenty of others. Why would anyone purposely choose to torture themselves like that? In contrast, homosexuality is neither a choice nor a lifestyle--it’s a cold, hard fact of life. In all actuality, homosexuality is genetic, and we all know that you can’t pick and choose your genes, Brian. If it were possible, I’d be 6 feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and have the metabolism of an 18 year old. Unfortunately, I’m 5’9, brown hair, brown eyes, and I have to diet and exercise regularly in order to stay in shape. But that’s OK. I really like who I am. Back to my point, the same genetics that determine each person’s identity: sex, eye color, hair color, skin color, height, etc, also determines their sexual orientation. They’re one in the same. It’s a shame science has yet to factually prove this--our world will certainly be a much better place when it does. But in the meantime, much like the existence of God, you don’t necessarily have to see it to believe it, right Brian? You can’t prove God and I can’t prove genetic homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean neither exist. What I can guarantee you is this: no one chooses to be gay. I certainly didn’t. But that’s the way life goes, Brian. You can’t choose who you are. You are who you are. You are heterosexual, others are homosexual. It’s all a part of the world we live in and it will not just go away simply because you want it to or because you don’t believe in it. You can’t denounce the lives of millions of gay men and women just because you want to, because you choose to, Brian. Be reasonable. Honestly, religion is a choice. There are many religions to choose from as there’s no universal interpretation of God. Religion, and its teachings, is a belief system you choose to follow, or in some instances, a choice your parents made for you. And, at the other end of the spectrum, many people do not believe in a God at all. Plenty of educated and good-hearted individuals do not believe in God. Yet no one questions or denounces their motives, their existence on Earth. Weird, huh? Regardless, there are many different types of people, different ideologies, different perspectives in this country, Brian, so many that we can’t cherry pick who’s right and who’s wrong, but instead we can accept our differences and move on. Luckily, we’re all free to live our own lives as we see fit. Isn’t America great?
Yet, sadly, this country isn’t perfect. We live in a country full of greed, malice, murder, and mayhem. Considering such, it’s surprising that you compare actual evil to that of two men or two women expressing love toward one another. It’s simply ridiculous Brian. Actually, I take that back. It’s absolutely unspeakable that you would promote or suggest such blatant ignorance and bigotry. While your opinion is your own, and you have a right to it, you have no right (or reason) to project such hateful words and ideas directly into the lives of others. Our country needs less of that. Bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, hate…that’s what evil truly is--even an atheist and a Catholic can both agree on that. C’mon, Brian, you can’t be serious when you say gay people are evil. I certainly hope you were kidding. If you weren’t, you may want to reread the statements you made earlier, taking a closer look at the more-than-obvious seeds of evil you, yourself, planted into this world via email.
At any rate, gay men and women are slowly, case by case, being given the legal right to be married under the same state law that gave you the legal right to marry your wife. Your statement proclaiming “God created marriage” is only partially true. It’s only a true statement if you believe such. But what about the rest of us? What about religious people that believe in gay marriage? Is their religion wrong? What about heterosexual people who are non-religious, or even atheist, that are given the full legal right to be married, no questions asked? Is that a conflict of interest for you? It certainly should be. My belief is that God did not notarize your marriage certificate. In fact, I believe it was your local state government officials that validated your marriage. And, the last time I checked, the state notary didn’t work for God, but rather the state of Iowa. Regardless, while your version of what a marriage really is may vary from mine, one thing consistently remains true: a state government is the only entity that can officially recognize a marriage certificate. God and the church have nothing to do with it, legally. Our state governments do not have conference calls with the big man (or woman) upstairs. While I respect the fact that your God doesn’t support gay marriage, that’s fine, but we don’t all see God like you do, Brian. You can’t interject your God into my life. On the basis that I do not believe in the same God as you, that doesn’t make us (gay American citizens) less deserving, especially within a legal structure where the church is separate from the state. Therefore, people like your future son-in-law, myself, and many others across the nation can rightfully champion a state’s legal decision to no longer ignorantly discriminate against its own citizens. It’s a good thing, Brian, not evil. The sanctity of marriage can never be soiled if the marriage is based on two people loving each other. The right of marriage is about legally protecting two loving, committed individuals, and their family, regardless of their genetic makeup and regardless of outside religious perspectives that have no bearing within the marriage at hand. As the saying goes, keep your religion out of my marriage.
Hopefully, someday soon, you will learn that God is not a spiteful, vengeful Creator who would persecute homosexual men and women for expressing love toward one another. God is love, Brian, and I believe we are all created in a loving image of our maker; a God who created us with a purpose to promote goodwill and to spread love and acceptance onto others. That’s the God I believe in and that’s the life I lead.
I think that’s a respectable life worth living, don’t you?
For reasons unbeknownst to myself, your opinion reflects heaven as a place where only heterosexuals both belong and will be allowed into, is that right? If what you say is true, specifically, that according to your religious beliefs, homosexuals are nothing but greedy, child-stealing, perverted, immoral and evil demons…if that truly is your viewpoint, myself and millions of other good-hearted people on this Earth are doomed. Fortunately, I can find peace amid your hate. If what you say is true––I would rather rot in the fiery pits of hell than spend all eternity in a bigoted, self-righteous wasteland that you call heaven.
Obviously, I stand in opposition to your view point on this matter, but I will pray for your mind to be healed and your heart to be opened.
Sincerely,
Ryan
