Yesterday was positively historic, make no question.  And enough words will already have been written on how great this election outcome is by the time I hit “Publish” on this sure-to-be-overlooked-by-the-Pulitzer-committee piece, that I’m not going to waste time waxing eloquent on Obama’s win.

But I have some things I want to get off my chest.

First of all, I’m really proud to be a citizen of the United States right now.  As a country, we sent a message to the world — we get it.  We understand.  We’ll be worthy of respect again.  Despite the beliefs of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, the opinion of the rest of the world matters.  The United States isn’t a world power just Because We Say So.  Without the respect of the other nations, the United States is doomed.  We took a big step.

I’m also very proud that my first ballot in a general election in this country went towards the first African-American president.  We made history, and my ballot, in its own little way, was a part of that.  For the first time since 1976 a Democrat received better than 50% of the vote.

It’s big, no question.

But I’m angry.  Angry that in this day and age, so many people still feel the need to pass some laws defining marriage as something exclusively between a man and a woman.  Florida, California, and Arizona passed initiatives to prohibit same-sex marriage.  This simply leaves me irate, andI’m just going to throw it out here right now, laid bare.  If you have no opposition to same-sex marriage for other people, this article is not speaking to you.  But for the others…

The only marriage that concerns you is yours.  That’s it.  If you’re opposed to same-sex marriage, then I recommend you find someone who is not of your gender and set your sights there.  You have no say in anyone else’s marriage.

If you think I’m wrong about that, I want you to pick up a dictionary.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

Now, look up the word miscegenation.  It’s a mouthful, I know.  Got it?  Good.  Now, hie thee to yon encyclopedia, history book, or friendly neighborhood Wikipedia and look up “anti-miscegenation laws” and bask in the glory of what happens when people get concerned about other people’s marriages when they clearly shouldn’t.

As recently as three years before I was born, my marriage would have been illegal in Virginia.  My.  Fucking.  Marriage. To what end?  Why?

You think people of the same sex shouldn’t marry because it’s some sort of affront to God?  Perhaps your should remember that people once thought that of interracial marriages.  I’m sure some still do.  If you tried to pass an anti-miscegenation law today you’d be chased out of town with pitchforks, and rightly so.  If your affront to same-sex marriage comes from a church’s view or a quote from the bible, I strongly encourage you to read the rest of Leviticus.  Soon you’ll be keeping kosher, sacrificing animals and engaging in a spree of mayhem and biblical killing the likes of which have not been seen in eons.  So, unless you’re going to be taking everything in that book literally as The Word, and I mean everything, climb down off the pulpit and mingle with the rest of us heathen.

That the Supreme Court has not yet overturned these horrible laws is astounding to me.  Let’s look at what the Supreme Court said in its unanimous decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia:

Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Look at that.  “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man.’”  Wow.  Just reflect on that for a moment.

The Fourteenth Amendment is that which ensured equal rights to all Americans — it abolished slavery and prohibited discrimination based on race.  It was part of the basis for striking down these horrible laws. When one couples this with one of my favorite amendments, the Ninth Amendment (”The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”), it is staggering to me that these laws can even stand up to a Supreme Court challenge.

I’m one of those people who believes, fundamentally, the concept of ‘marriage’ is not a matter for the government anyway.  If it’s some religious church ritual, keep it in the churches and out of the government.  But that’s across the board.  If what the government recognizes as the union of two people of the same sex is a “civil union”, then that should be the case universally.  Man/woman, man/man, woman/woman — if it’s a government official’s stamp of approval on said union, then by the very constitution, all those unions must be labeled and treated equally.

And if some church wants to have a holy ceremony with all sorts of pomp and circumstance and call that a marriage, fantastic.  But that ceremony should have no legal status.  It’s something the church does.  My first communion and confirmation weren’t government events logged anywhere, why should any other church ceremony?

I’m hostile, because I’m angry.  If I’ve offended you, I want you to consider the offense of someone in California who’s just been told their marriage is invalidated.  There is no logical reason to preclude a loving couple of consenting adults from joining together in a lifelong partnership.  And unless you’re one of the people in that couple, it’s really none of your business.

I’ll end with the comic from February.

Gay Marriage

Gay Marriage