View of Gay and Lesbian Marriages

Far too often, I sit listening to the rants of people on the television, radio, and read in the media the constant babble about how gays and lesbians have no right to marry because "God" says it is wrong. Frankly, I am sick of the same tired excuse that makes absolutely no sense given the laws of the United States regarding the separation of church and state.

At risk for angering many within the Christian community, it is time I have my say on the idea; they can either agree or disagree. It is not my problem any longer because in this country at this very moment, Bush and his administration have yet to ban or remove freedom of speech from our constitutional rights.

Unless history changed sometime between my years in grade school, college, college again, and the extensive amount of reading I do on a daily basis, the United States operates on the premise of separation of church and state. The reason this idea became law was so this country would not end up as those such as England and France where the person sitting on the thrown gave all the rights regarding justice to the church. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I can say that the founding fathers of this country knew this was a terrible idea and open to abuse. I am more Native American Indian than any other ethnic background so I use the term founding fathers lightly. Regardless, these great men that created the design that is now the laws of our country made sure the church had no political control above the people of the country. Citizens of the newly formed country had the right to follow the religion of their choice or even choose to support no religion at all. The separation of church and state did our country and its citizens a favor by allowing such freedoms those from England did not possess in the early days of this nation.

If we think about the term marriage and the steps to get married, nowhere does it state that any couple must have permission of the church to marry. Catholics will claim the church has ordained power over whether someone can or cannot marry but that is a partial truth and since a partial truth is a lie, let us call it what it is - a lie. The Catholic Church can and does remove people from the church for breaking specific ideals of belief. I find this behavior the least Christian of all. The Catholic Church can accept confessions of every sin that exists. Priests give complete absolution to the one in confession yet they cannot absolve those who believe the ideals of the church are outdated. These actions are not limited to the Catholics so nobody can say that I am picking on any denomination. I am including Baptist, Southern Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Jehovah, Muslim, and many others that spout platitudes at anyone who dare to take on the churches when it comes to marriage between same-sex partners.

In order to marry in most states, the couple must have a physical. The couple must purchase a marriage license from the courthouse, not the church but rather the courthouse. After purchasing the marriage license, the couple must find someone recognized by the state in which they live to perform the ceremony. In the state of North Carolina, the only persons available to marry couples are ordained ministers of the state or a civil officer with that officer being a magistrate. Nowhere does it state that a preacher, priest, reverend, or any other name for a person over a church congregation must be present at a wedding due to the separation of church and state.

Since there are no laws proclaiming the fact that the leader of a church must marry any couple who wish to marry, marriage boils down to nothing more than a legal binding contract between two people. Since any two people can sign a contract regardless of gender, the law should be clear on the fact that gay and lesbian marriages are legal by right of commonsense and the fact that nowhere does it state that a member of the clergy has the right to speak out against any union between two people. The only thing preventing gays and lesbians from marrying is ignorance and a misunderstanding of the law.

Something I cannot understand is how churches members and their leaders can sit back and call love of any sort between two consenting adults evil. Love at its core is one of the most pure of emotions. When does love become evil? Why is it okay for a man to love a woman or woman to love a man yet when two men or two women are in love it is evil and vile? Again, this is nothing more than ignorance at work. Perhaps if the church groups would take a moment to open their eyes, their minds, and most importantly their hearts they would understand that each person born into this world does not have control over the person they love. It happens. The true sin is when a person goes into a relationship knowing they do not love the person of the opposite sex yet the person does so anyhow to save face among the masses. That is judgmental on the part of the church. Whatever happened to the phrase, "do not judge lest you be judged?"

This writer spends a great deal of time studying a variety of religious beliefs. The lessons I learned so far with exception to those that follows naturalist beliefs where all things are sacred tend to have the same view and use the same bait and switch answer. Any answers given in response to the difficult questions are more often than not the result of quoting some obscure passage within the bible that is so far out of context it does not deem worthy of an answer to the questions. I learned closed-minded Christians cannot allow themselves to consider the possibility the views they learn might be wrong. The constant response comes down to the following, "The bible says this," or, "the bible states that," on any subject. When did the bible or any other book become the end-all be-all of existence? When did it become nothing more than a history lesson written from the perspective of different writers?

It is my view that the bible resembles that of a crime with ten witnesses asked to write down each personal account. After each witness writes his or her account, nine times out of ten there will be ten different accounts of the crime. What makes the bible so different? It is the perspective of the writer so therefore it is a probable the bible has flaws. Furthermore, the original books are in ancient Hebrew. Any translator will tell you that when translating from one language to another, often much is lost in the translation. How much of the bible is missing or mis-read because of loss in translation? It is possible the bible does not condemn same sex marriages.

As a civilized society, it is up to us as individuals to make up our minds as to what is right or wrong without putting our entire beliefs within the pages of a book that has a high probability of being incorrect on many levels. A person raised in a home with love and later finds love out in the world can tell the difference between right and wrong without ever having read the bible or any other text for that matter. It is an inner feeling within our soul and subconscious that tells us we are doing wrong.

Again, as a writer, I am of the opinion that the church should remain out of the courtroom and state affairs as the founding fathers of this country intended. We have centuries of proof that shows us how corruption begins when the church controls everything within the government. One of my favored quotes is the one that states undeniably that "we should learn from the past least we be forced to repeat it." It time we learn from past mistakes so we do not make them again in the future. Disallowing gays and lesbians the same rights as those of the opposite sex to join in a binding contract between consenting adults and call it marriage is the true abomination, not the marrying between the two.

It is my opinion that the churches and governmental officials that refuse to abide by the law stating two consenting adults can enter into a binding contract called marriage owe a deep, heartfelt apology to the gays and lesbians denied the right to take their partner in marriage with the same benefits of those who marry as opposite sex. Furthermore, it is high time the government does its duty by removing the church from state affairs as the law demands. When this happens, the entire country can begin to heal.