Adam and Steve

As I write this, the battle for the right to marry for gays and lesbians rages on as we inch towards November 4th. Polls flip-flop as people are swayed by one commercial or another.
It should never have come to this.
The California constitution has always stated that all are equal under state law. There should never have been any “definition” officially placed in the California constitution that stated that marriage should be between one man and one woman. The fight over Proposition 8 (which would ban the freedom for gays and lesbians to marry in the state) is almost entirely a moral one, and those who oppose it do so largely because of religious beliefs. But you can’t legislate morality. It doesn’t work.
I become utterly baffled every time I hear or read about the uproar over redefining marriage. Those who say that gays and lesbians don’t have the “right” to redefine the institution for others miss the point entirely. This isn’t a dictionary contest; arguing over marriage’s meaning is as worthwhile as debating whether it's macaroni and cheese or cheese and macaroni - in other words, a gigantic waste of time.
I wish people could see the tears – of joy, of relief, of love – that gays and lesbians have shed when they realized they could legally be marry the ones they love and on their wedding days. I wish people could see how much it means to them. Imagine, then, being married and then being told that your union may be declared null in less than a month because others – people whom you don’t even know – don’t think it’s right. Because of what someone else believes, you may lose the right to enjoy one of the most meaningful relationships others have – that of being a spouse. Your relationship with one of the most important people in your life is up for committee vote. There is something very, very wrong with that.
There are those who claim that gay marriage will destroy the institution or at the very least, change it for the worse. Actually, straight people messed marriage up loooooong before gay marriage ever came onto the scene. Remember the 70s? Many of us are too young to actually have experienced the decade, but we all know that the divorce rate began to skyrocket then. And long before that, the landscape of marriage changed when people changed the landscape. Centuries ago, as people moved across country borders and intermingled with others, as they grew in knowledge and perceptions slowly began to change, dowries and other views (such as women being “property” to be “given away”) were abolished. So, I’d like to suggest the following for all who would “protect marriage:” help strengthen marriages so that the divorce rate isn’t so high. Help couples understand one another better. Help reduce domestic violence. Help end child abuse and neglect. All of those have far more damaging implications for marriage than allowing same-sex couples to join the party.
Yet I realize that it also isn’t that simple. Many who are for Prop 8 are well-meaning, good people, yet people who see gay marriage as an assault on family values and the catalyst for Armageddon. People who are my relatives, friends, my family’s friends and people in my faith community (yes, I’m religious and still am against 8; I was raised, fortunately, to follow my conscience above all). But religion has scant place in this argument because the ceremonies used in gay marriages would be CIVIL ones. (Churches who are open to performing them could also do so; those who object to them wouldn’t have to.)
“It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” goes an oft-repeated saying. True. Yet in that one sentence lies one of the greatest ironies of Prop 8's proponents' desire to ban gay marriage. If you recall, the book of Genesis says the responsibility for the fall that set sin in motion sat on the shoulders of two people – Adam and Eve. It was, note: a man and a woman who were the first sinners.