There was a point last month that I finally felt like a human being. I felt like I was equal to all the other people in this beautiful country. Same-sex couples were finally allowed to marry and I was finally proud to be a Utahn. However, with the stay of same-sex marriage and Gov. Herbert's letter saying that the marriages that occurred when it was legal will not be recognized by the state, I am no longer a proud Utahn. I, once again, am a second-class citizen.
There is something that gets spouted off by bigots across Utah and across the nation. They say, "I have nothing wrong with you as a person. I love you and I think that you are a good person, but I don't believe what you are doing is right. I don't think your lifestyle is right. I don't think that you should be allowed to marry because marriage is between a man and a woman. We can't change the definition of marriage because it isn't right for two men to marry or two women to marry. What's next? Are we going to let a man marry his dog? But I do want you to be happy and I am very tolerant of you and others like you."
Statements like these, may seem like very supportive and tolerant statements to the people that make them, but they are simply backhanded slaps to the face and punches to the gut. Saying you support someone and want them to be happy and then taking away rights given to them through the law is a two-faced response. You cannot love someone and say you support them, and then advocate for their rights to be taken away from them because you don't "believe" in them.
Also,saying we cannot redefine marriage is erroneous because marriage has been redefined over and over. Men were able to have multiple wives. Men were able to marry and have concubines that they loved more than they loved their own wives. As part of the covenant of marriage, men were able to beat their wives and legally rape their wives. Women were property under marriage vows and not equals. People were only allowed to marry within their same race. When Mormons were practicing polygamy and it became illegal, they were forced out of the country into hiding to continue to practice their beliefs. All of the things that made up marriage and the legal rights of men have changed time and time again. Definitions change and times change.
I don't care if you don't allow same-sex marriage in the temples, synagogues, and chapels. That is your religious right to deny, but to not allow the legal marriage of two adults that love each other is unconstitutional and cruelly unequal. By allowing same-sex marriage, although you blanket your right to keep same-sex marriage from happening under the guise of your religious right, the state is not infringing on your religious rights. However, by not allowing it, you are infringing on my constitutional rights and the rights of all the other tax paying LGBTQ Americans and Utahns.
I can only hope that one day I will be proud to be a Utahn again. I can only hope I can feel like an equal and not a second-class citizen. For now, the words of a poem by Emily Dickinson come to me every moment of the day. She writes, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?/Are you--Nobody--Too?..." I can only hope and be patient that equality is on the horizon and my sense of being a "Nobody" will become a nightmarish past.
Namaste!
There is something that gets spouted off by bigots across Utah and across the nation. They say, "I have nothing wrong with you as a person. I love you and I think that you are a good person, but I don't believe what you are doing is right. I don't think your lifestyle is right. I don't think that you should be allowed to marry because marriage is between a man and a woman. We can't change the definition of marriage because it isn't right for two men to marry or two women to marry. What's next? Are we going to let a man marry his dog? But I do want you to be happy and I am very tolerant of you and others like you."
Statements like these, may seem like very supportive and tolerant statements to the people that make them, but they are simply backhanded slaps to the face and punches to the gut. Saying you support someone and want them to be happy and then taking away rights given to them through the law is a two-faced response. You cannot love someone and say you support them, and then advocate for their rights to be taken away from them because you don't "believe" in them.
Also,saying we cannot redefine marriage is erroneous because marriage has been redefined over and over. Men were able to have multiple wives. Men were able to marry and have concubines that they loved more than they loved their own wives. As part of the covenant of marriage, men were able to beat their wives and legally rape their wives. Women were property under marriage vows and not equals. People were only allowed to marry within their same race. When Mormons were practicing polygamy and it became illegal, they were forced out of the country into hiding to continue to practice their beliefs. All of the things that made up marriage and the legal rights of men have changed time and time again. Definitions change and times change.
I don't care if you don't allow same-sex marriage in the temples, synagogues, and chapels. That is your religious right to deny, but to not allow the legal marriage of two adults that love each other is unconstitutional and cruelly unequal. By allowing same-sex marriage, although you blanket your right to keep same-sex marriage from happening under the guise of your religious right, the state is not infringing on your religious rights. However, by not allowing it, you are infringing on my constitutional rights and the rights of all the other tax paying LGBTQ Americans and Utahns.
I can only hope that one day I will be proud to be a Utahn again. I can only hope I can feel like an equal and not a second-class citizen. For now, the words of a poem by Emily Dickinson come to me every moment of the day. She writes, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?/Are you--Nobody--Too?..." I can only hope and be patient that equality is on the horizon and my sense of being a "Nobody" will become a nightmarish past.
Namaste!
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