The Absurd Debate on Gay Marriage

    In recent years, the politicians in the United States have focused more and more on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.  While it seems that a good portion of the population have gotten caught up in the heated debate over gay marriage in particular, I think it might be worth stepping back to see the larger picture surrounding the debate.

The year 2007 marked the beginning of the Great Recession, the year that our economy and many banks' stocks (notably A.I.G. who received the largest bailout and just a few days ago threatened to sue the U.S. government over the terms of that very bailout) collapsed in what felt like a matter of seconds.  The housing bubble burst, and years of fraudulent and predatory lending practices caused the U.S. economy to implode, quickly taking much of the world economy with it.

The next year brought with it many milestones: the first black president Barack Obama, the Eurozone Crisis,  the fight in California over Proposition 8, a rather poorly worded document (in my opinion) which pressed the state's public to vote yes for retaining the definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, and the beginning of the worst political stalemate in the U.S. Congress in decades.  Political posturing, extreme rhetoric, and especially a tendency in the G.O.P. to navigate themselves toward the extreme right of their party are very familiar aspects of what we see in congress today (and what I believe lost them the 2012 election).

This all surrounds the gay marriage debate, which is undoubtedly a tool being used by politicians on both the right and the left to distract and stir up their various constituencies.

Because really it's not a difficult debate.  If we're looking at this through a religious perspective, then it's simple.  There are religions which condone same-sex marriage.  So to deny those religions the ability to continue marriage ceremonies between same-sex couples is an obvious violation of the first amendment, the freedom of religion.  Moreover, there are many couples who are not religious at all, and would not seek a religious ceremony of any kind, and to deny them the right to marry is an infringement on their rights as well.

To those religions who do not agree with same-sex marriage, such as sects of Christianity like Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism, members of which have been at the forefront of the fight opposing gay marriage, I would say that it is not an infringement on their rights, to give others the power to marry because the government cannot force new beliefs on religion, just as religion cannot legally force its beliefs onto the government or the population it serves. 

Remember Separation of Church and State?  This is the reason for it.  Gay marriage is the same as any marriage, the joining of two people who (hopefully) love each other, and its time that our society own up to that truth, legalize gay marriage, and move on.

We've got more pressing problems like the debt ceiling and an inept congress, to worry about this any more anyway.

(>^_^)>#