Gay Marriage

I am straight, married with two kids, and I support same-sex marriage. I also don't understand what the whole big deal is with letting gay people get married. Seriously...why does it matter? Two people love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together (hopefully). It's not promising anything to God unless you ask a priest or pastor or rabbi to marry you. If you get the justice of the peace to marry you, religion doesn't enter into it at all. It's a binding legal contract: always has been, always will be. Merriam-Webster.com defines it as such:

"a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>"

And I'm a little miffed by that, personally. "Traditional marriage" fuckin' sucked. Women were objects: property. We were bartered and sold like brood mares and expected to produce healthy sons. And if we didn't produce healthy sons we were beaten, told we were worthless, ignored, divorced or just abandoned.

Uppity and outspoken women were

punished by being forced to wear

head bridles to keep them from speaking.

It was perfectly legal to beat the hell out of your wife: she was your property and you could do what you wanted to with her. You could rape her and people would say "Well, he has a right to have sex with her. She's his wife." THAT is "traditional marriage". And THAT sucks. I refuse to go back to "traditional marriage". I am not an object. I have rights. I am a human being.

Even in the 50s (not so long ago) it was understood that a man

could beat his wife (to a degree).

So why can't other humans beings be happy (or miserable, however you choose to look at marriage), too? Really, how is it hurting society to allow gay people to marry? I think, more than it lowers our moral standards as a society, it actually highlights one important aspect of many people's lives: bigotry. If society, as a whole, accepts gay marriage then doesn't it just prove that those who don't accept it are bigots?

"Allowing interracial marriages “necessarily involves the degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration.” -- A U.S. representative from Georgia quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1996

How absolutely racist and awful does that sound? I mean, you can't help but think that this person is just a hateful, mean, racist ass-hat. But how is that any different from this?

 "Marriage between one man and one woman is critical to maintaining social stability. Society as a whole pays a high price when marriage is devalued. You see divorce; you see single-parenting; you see a rise in out-of-wedlock pregnancies." Shari Rendall, director of legislation and policy for Concerned Women for America.

Really? I mean...come on! What's wrong with two people being happy? Two people are in love, they're not breaking into your house during dinner and having wild gay sex on your table. They're not trying to steal your children from you to raise as their own. They're not going to beat you up because you're not gay. They just want to get married and be happy. Why would you deny some one that right? Why?

 I mean, look at how happy these people are! How can you see this and say that their happiness, their right as a human being, is unconstitutional?