There's this thing that happens to me sometimes. Something I care about becomes so overwhelming that it starts leaching into every thought and every other conversation. It wakes me up at night, and it keeps me up—I lie in bed replaying conversations (Why didn't I say that? How did I miss that terrible logic?)—and partly just to get some friggin sleep, I end up shutting down for a bit.
During this last bit, something pretty huge happened: California's proposition 8, which revoked the right of people who are gay to get married, was ruled unconstitutional by Judge Walker. He put a stay on that (i.e., "Let's wait a little bit before putting it into effect.") Then he took it away. Then someone else put it back. This gives the chance for that decision to get appealed. I don't know tons of details because of that shut-down I mentioned. If you want lots of details given by my side of the issue, go to prop8trialtracker.com. If you want details given by the other side, go to prop8case.com.
Just this past weekend, I got into what I perceived as a rather heated argument with my granddaddy about Judge Walker's decision. This is a remarkable event as I'd venture to guess that Granddaddy has had about two heated arguments in his whole life. He's pretty calm and cool. I'm not though.
Anyhow, it seems a lot of people who are conservative think the voters of California were pretty put out by this. The voters, and the democratic process in general, actually. After all, if what the voters want can be "ruled unconstitutional", what kind of democracy is that?
A fair question.
My answer: Since when can voters decide to revoke civil rights? What would have happened if white people could have voted on whether black people could vote? We don't ask our child if she'd like to invite that dorky kid to the party; we make her invite him.
And this is where Granddaddy and I diverged. Sin is not a civil right. Voting against gay marriage is akin to voting against murder. Or vandalism or car theft or female genital mutilation or having to check blow-out preventers. It's not a right. It's just wrong.
So I am freshly stirred up about all this. I'll begin posting about all the reasons my 17-year-old self used to give against being gay and gay marriage, and why I no longer believe those reasons. I'll start—naturally—at Genesis 1.
