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There seems to have been a shift in the Republican party
away from opposing so-called gay marriage and towards an acceptance of
homosexuals being able to be married with the state’s imprimatur.
I can understand Senator Rob Portman’s position. His son is gay, and he is still his son, and he loves him.
I saw Nicole Wallace on Fox News Sunday taking a similar
position. She worked in the Bush 43 White House. I certainly
understand Vice President Dick Cheney’s position because his situation
is similar to Portman’s.
Here is my problem with all of that.
The state’s imprimatur.
As I have said many times in this space, what you do on
your own time and who you do it with is your own business, and I don’t
really care.
But. Please include me out.
I don’t care if you covet Paris Hilton or Perez Hilton;
but why do I need to know about it, much less be forced to approve of
it?
If two people of the same sex want to set up
housekeeping, they can enter into a civil union, which should give them
every right that a married couple has. And, for the record, I think the
federal government should only involve itself in marriage where it is
forced to (and, thus, parts of the Defense of Marriage Act probably ARE
unconstitutional.)
Why is it so important for me to do anything but wish a gay couple well?
And by me, I mean all of us.
Truth be told, I don’t really know whether or not God
believes that homosexuality is fundamentally wrong or that marriage is
between a man and a woman. However, he certainly arranged our plumbing
to accommodate that theory.
I suspect that people on my side of the argument may
eventually lose to a pop culture that places a heavy value on doing
whatever feels good at the moment; and there will be, on the surface,
acceptance of gay marriage.
If that’s the case, I’m glad I won’t be around to see
the long-term effects. Ultimately, it won’t be Antonin Scalia or Ruth
Bader Ginsburg making the judgments. It will be a much higher authority,
and I suspect that it will be loud and clear.
How do I know?
I don’t. But, being willing to make a wager, I can
calculate odds. Let me quote William Shatner’s “Boston Legal”
character, Denny Crane, when asked if he believed in God and why:
“If you believe in God and it turns out there is
no God, there’s no harm no foul. . .but if you don’t believe in God and
there is a God, you’re screwed.”
So, you need to ask yourself a question. And, as the
number of your tomorrows becomes significantly fewer than your
yesterdays, the question may be more pressing.
The question is: do you want to bet against God? For all eternity? Those seem like pretty big odds, even for a value player.
I cannot tell you whether there is life after the body
gives out or whether we just blink off like a burned out light bulb.
But I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to take a chance that there is no
master plan to the universe and we just become used up dustballs after
we die. I’m pretty sure that the odds favor the theory of a master plan
implemented by a master planner. Maybe God doesn’t take the form we
think. Maybe there are not any pearly gates. But there’s a lot more
empirical evidence that there is a God than man-made global warming. If
that were a proposition bet in a Las Vegas sports book, I’d be
hard-pressed to bet money against God. As far as betting my life for
eternity, well, I’d be real nervous about that.
And, I think that Richard Nixon had it right when he
told us that there’s a great silent majority out there that is more
conservative socially than liberal, believes in God, and wants to do the
right thing.
That explains why 30 states have laws on the books
making marriage between a man and a woman that were passed in the
privacy of the polling booth by that very silent majority.
Giving gay marriage the imprimatur of the state isn’t going to screw up my life.
But, if I were 20 right now, I wouldn’t want to bet on
what the world might look like 50 years from now under those
circumstances.
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