Wednesday July 11, 2007

Florida marrige ammendment

“Inasmuch as a marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

Those words will appear on the November 2008 ballot, a proposed amendment to the Florida state constitution. It’s intended to ban domestic partnership benefits that some cities and counties grant to gay couples (Broward County, Miami Beach, Key West, and West Palm Beach). These bans have passed in 28 states, and have failed nowhere except Arizona.

Now, I disagree with the so-called social conservatives on almost everything, but I grant them that some of their issues have complicated moral and other issues surrounding them. But their opposition to homosexuality has no such complexity — it’s plain and simple wrong. It’s a small-minded fear of the different, lazily tied to a gross misreading of Genesis 19 (which features a condemnation of homosexual rape, and which just as a kicker has the guy offer his daughters up for rape to protect two angels visiting him; but I digress). It’s an attempt to stop people from doing what they very much want to do, when said actions do absolutely no harm to anyone. The fact that a majority of Americans support these bans is abhorrent and, frankly, a little incomprehensible.

Well. Florida Red & Blue is an organization put together to fight the amendment. Because some argue that it could be interperted to stop all domestic partnerships, the group has chosen straight couples to represent them. They have a pretty good shot of success, in part because constitutional amendments require a 60% majority to pass.

But really, can’t we get past this already? Wouldn’t it help the anti-gay crowd to realize that they’re on the wrong side of history, that in the very near future these laws w