Here we go Again

Son in Law John has been jabbing gently, and sometimes not so gently, at this old lady lately, and I'm going to use today to catch up on some of his complaints.

1)  John showed up at the dinnertable last week with a print out in hand and posed a contest to guess how many posts there were to Only Casual Observations in various years.  In doing this he got to annoy both me and my daughter Molly who LOVEs to win a good contest.  Molly and I tied on most questions.  The questions were "What year did OCO begin?"  Then morphed to how many posts in each subsequent year...down to the current year, 2013 with ...0.

2) John asserts that I pretend to just be casually observing whereas I am actually a fully vetted liberal mama.  To which I reply, I'm not pretending to be anything other than a rational thinker and given a set of facts I arrive at what seems to me to be a logical conclusion.  Right now the liberals are giving me much better material to work with than my conservative friends and relatives who hold positions that even they can not back up with any kind of rationality.

3)  John also asserts that I'm just posting things, mainly on Facebook, to annoy people.  To which I reply, my mission in what's left of a rapidly waning life is to bring enlightenment and harmony based on logic to those I care about.  They can take it, or leave it, any way they choose.  Some are choosing to pray for my soul, others just think I'm a nut case, but whatever I am...I'm me.

So with all that being said, and with at least 51% of of Americans now in my camp on same sex marriage, I'm going to repost something I wrote back in 2010, along with a link to one of the most poignant essays on the subject I've ever read.  Hope I don't offend too many, and if I do...keep prayin' for me.  http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/honey_were_praying_for_you/



Blessings,
Janie

What is a Marriage?

I had every intention of writing about all the wonderful family time we enjoyed on a brief vacation, but I'm going to delay those posts for a while. At the risk of offending some of my favorite people, I'm going to write about gay rights and marriage. If you can deal with the subject in a rational way, keep reading. If not, check in another time.

I have the pleasure of a free New York Times newpaper on my computer every morning. They haven't noticed that I'm getting it for free, even though I completed a survey saying I would be happy to pay a reasonable amount for a quality newpaper, so I just enjoy. Today's editorial piece sparked a passion in me that I thought might have been lost. A passion for equal rights. To read the article, hopefully for free, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11fri1.html?th&emc=th

I have long been in favor equal rights for all humans on the planet, and in my book that includes homosexuals. My moral character, however, still struggles with sexual freedoms, particularly ones in which there might be a victim...pedophelia, un-safe sexual practices, etc. But there's no slippery slope in my mind at all. In my opinion, a committed relationship between two consenting adults is one deserving of honor and celebration, and in most societies we call that a marriage.

Wedding ceremonies in most cultures involve a commitment for life to another person. We promise to love, honor, and cherish or obey, "for better or worse,till death us do part". It's not easy, and most of us have no idea how awful the "worse" part is going to be until it happens, but most of us steel ourselves and charge ahead because of our commitment to that promise.

The bibical passages that have been used by some to campaign against same-sex marriages are part of an antiquated code that was useful in the past in order to ensure the survival of civilization. I could liken them to Jewish dietary laws and keeping Kosher. That was necessary to prevent bacterial contamination in ancient days, but is no longer necessary, and hence an optional part of being a Jew.

I could be mistaken, but I believe that the passages forbidding lying with a person of the same sex were originally intended to ensure the growth of the tribe or family. Lying with a person of the same sex did nothing to increase population, which was the key to survival. If you fast forward about two thousand years, an increase in numbers of the human race has become something we should probably be interested in curtailing, not promoting. I often wonder how many of the poor children in the world would be less so if they were born into smaller, self-sufficient families. So marriage doesn't necessitate procreation in order to be a valid institution any more.

Many of the marriage laws were designed to ensure inheritance by "legitimate (usually male) heirs". In today's environment, DNA tests pretty much preclude the necessity for rules prescribing virginity of the bride and assumption that all children born to the union are from her husband. I'm not saying that these ideals don't serve any purpose anymore, just that they may not serve as the only means to an end. Many children today are born out of wedlock, but there are ways to ensure that those children are provided for by their parents.

In the families that do exist, two loving parents are pretty much universally acknowledged as the ideal in almost all cultures. In the modern family, the caregiving obligations increasingly fall on either male or female parent, depending on who is better at it or has time for it. My sons in law have given many a bottle and bath and read bedtime stories ad infinitum. Those were all mommy duties when I was a child. But times change. Today, the gender of the parent doesn't matter as much as the loving care given.

So, why can't we all take a giant step forward into the twenty first century, assure all people regardless of gender equal rights, including marriage should they choose. And while we're at it, let's celebrate that choice with a wedding and call it a marriage, which is what it is.

Blessings,
Janie