One Final Political Post

[joreth]

With respect to those of us (yes, I said "us", not "you") who are heartily sick and tired of political discussion and are just counting down the minutes until the election is over, I will put this post behind a cut.  It's about the so-called marriage initiatives, Obama's stance on them, and my own reconciliation with personal beliefs vs. holding political office.



So, I'm sure those of you who have bothered to come behind the cut are already aware of the slander by the Prop 8 people.  If you're not, here's a rundown:

Prop. 8 is on the ballot in CA, which is a proposed amendment to the CA state constitution that will permanently define marriage as betwen one man and one woman, thereby annulling all those gay marriages that have taken place so far this year, and refusing recognition of any alternative marriage that would be considered legal elsewhere (other states or countries).  It is a blatant discrimination in the guise of "protect our families and children".

The official Prop. 8 campaign sent out, at the last minute, a flier to African Americans claiming that Obama supports Prop 8, in an attempt to garner their support for the ballot.

Obama has declared officially, both before and in response to this mailer, that he is unequivocally opposed to Prop. 8.

He has also, however, been recorded as saying that he, personally, does not agree with "gay marriage", but supports civil unions that would give homosexuals all the exact same rights as heterosexuals.

So, why do I support him?

Well, it's like this.  Obama cites his Christian background as reason for why he does not agree with "gay marriage".  But he also tries hard not to let his religious beliefs affect his political values.  He believes in equal rights for all citizens.  Therefore, gays should have the same rights as straights, even though he has an emotional reaction to the concept of "marriage".

What he's doing, in effect, is separating the two concepts of "marriage" into the religious idea and the legal contract.  And I'm just fine with that.  I would prefer that the term "marriage" gets removed entirely from the legal definition and that ALL people just had "civil unions", and each religious organization can then decree what relationships are considered "sacred" according to their own invididual values.  That Sarah Palin's church doesn't consider my legal union "sacred" is of no importance to me, so long as my legally-recognized partner gets the medical benefits, insurance benefits, tax benefits, etc. that all other legal adult citizens are eligible for, should they choose to enter into a contract for the purposes of gaining those benefits.

I have no problem with our political officials having some kind of religious beliefs.  Well, actually, I do, but if I had the ability to kick out every politician because we disagreed on the existence of the supernatural, there wouldn't be enough people left to run a government.  No, what I have a problem with is using those religious beliefs to form public policy.  We are guaranteed a separation of church and state, and when public policy is determined by a religious belief, that directly contradicts my own religious beliefs, they are breaking that separation of church and state and removing my right to freedom of religion.

So that Obama is personally against gay marriage within the context of a "sacred" union?  Annoying, but something I can live with as long as he continues to strive for fair and equal civil rights in his public policy.  He is against Prop. 8 (and I'd imagine against Amendment 2, here in FL), and he actively opposes the Defense of Marriage Act at the federal level.

So, until we do away with the word "marriage" entirely in the context of legal unions, and until we re-write what a legal union is in terms of contractual rights and obligations, the best I can hope for is a man who recognizes that he has a religious bias, and does not allow his religious bias to dictate to him what policies he should enact with regards to civil rights for people outside of his own religious beliefs. Oh, and because this was funny:

Comments

[joreth]

:-) thanks, that was a good one