Ladies and gentlemen,
Now that "Don't ask, don't tell" has been consigned to the scrap heap of bad ideas and ludicrous policies, it's time to give the whole apparatus of sexual oppression one final push and remove this issue from the national agenda.
It's time to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of September, 21, 1996 and all the invidious vestiges of legalized oppression, in which one group of people tells another group of people what they can do with their bodies and with whom they can do it. And, most daft of all, that sexually oppressive majority tells the despised minority whom it may marry and under what circumstances. Here is (misused) power indeed.
Last time I checked America was the land of the brave and the home of the free. Somewhere along the line, however, we let our core values be turned on their heads. What was brave, after all, about subjecting the sexual minority to needlessly repressive legislation and allowing generations of abuse? What was free about parsing liberty so that it was available to some, but not to all? It was unnecessary! It was cruel! It was unAmerican... and it is the policy the overwhelming majority of you "leaders" have pursued... depriving thousands of our best citizens of their rights while triumphing the rights of other people. In the process you created a culture sanctifying by law the superiority of some, at the expense of others. And you dared call this the American way? It is the way of tyrants throughout the ages for whom divide and conquer was the best way to govern.
Think for a moment about "Don't ask, don't tell." Now that it's gone and we can review it through the rear view mirror of history, we can see it for what it was: a downright silly attempt to oppress, control, demean. Of course, it didn't work, although it was the law far too long. Who, after all, wants to devote their life to the business of sexual snoopery? Have we not better things to do with our time and resources than turning people into legalized Peeping Toms?
Who thinks up this stuff, anyway? It's no wonder your vocation -- politics -- is the subject of near universal contempt. Your business is to empower people, improve their lives rather than pander to the basest instincts of humanity.
Do you need more reasons that this for legalizing gay marriage? Take these for openers:
* Legalizing gay marriage nationwide delivers long-delayed rights to many without costing the rest anything except their arrogance and condescension. In short, it delivers equity and the full protection of the law without detriment of any kind to anyone.
* Legitimizing gay marriage strengthens the institution of marriage while providing those marrying the security and comfort of the law.
* Legalizing gay marriage, making it a civil right, removes often muddled clerics from the debate and puts them firmly in their place. Has anyone read the Constitution lately about the separation of church and state/ This is not a theocracy like Iran where mullahs set policy, disastrously so.
The debate on gay marriage has brought out the worst (and also occasionally the best) in today's theological discussions and sermonizing. Let's be very clear on this point: gay marriage is too important to be left to clergymen. Making gay marriage legal marginalizes these thought-challenged theologians without diminishing their rights.
Such people, once gay marriage is legal, will still have the right to thoughtless fulmination... but what they say will be viewed correctly as insignificant, quaint, outmoded, trivial thought from the ill-educated and mean spirited, not the Word of God.
* Legalizing gay marriage promotes marriage. It enables people who have yearned for lawful protection of their relationships the security they have asked for. Really, what sensible person could regard this as anything other than good? Legal marriage between two consenting adults is good, whoever those two people are. And that's a fact.
Want more?
Legalizing gay marriage removes an issue from the national agenda that should never have distracted us in the first place. It has never created a new job, never uplifted anyone's standard of living, never increased the rights and welfare of anyone at any time. In short it's been a foolish waste of time all round, perpetrated by those who claim to have a direct line, always accessible to the divinity, who gives them their hate lines direct. This sounds like Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition... the stuff of fear and loathing, not enlightenment. And, remember, this country was created by men of the Enlightenment who understood what repression was and crafted a society that above all let freedom ring.
Be ye unafraid our leaders. Little enough is required of you, including you, Mr. President Obama.
The glory days of the gay rights revolution are history. The heroes of the Stonewall riots of June 28, 1969 and the brave lads of the Mattachine Society (founded 1965) cry for a Vietnam-style Memorial all their own. Now you need only copy what legislators in a handful of progressive states (mostly in the Northeast and in Iowa) have already done. Pettifogging legal expertise is needed, no real courage at all. You legislators are surely up to this. It's what you do: "talk leadership while following... way far behind."
This goes for you, too, Mr. President. You went to the gay community cap in hand and made promises that gained you its adherence, its money, its votes. And here, as elsewhere, you have failed to deliver. If you have a liberal bone in you (which many now doubt) use it to solve this problem... or at the very least hoist your colors to the masthead, showing gumption for a change, not just the ability to read poll numbers.
It's clear which way history is moving.
Christmas Eve, 2010, on ABC's "Good Morning,America" Vice President Biden opined that gay marriage was on its way in as points of view "evolved" on this non-issue.
More telling 29-year-old Barbara Bush, the daughter of President George W. Bush, has released through the Human Rights Campaign, a video that takes her own father and his intolerance to task. Speaking as a New Yorker she says, "New York is about fairness and equality and everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love." In this, Ms. Bush joins her mother and grand mother, First Ladies both, who have always seen this issue clearly and in human terms. Why can't the ex-President? We forgave him many things including his alcoholism. Where is a drop of humanity in return?
It doesn't much matter, for the solution to the problem is at hand. People Barbara Bush's age regard the matter as settled; the grim reaper daily removes more obstructionists and haters. Demographics, not courage, will settle the issue.
Still, Mr. President and honored legislators all, it would have been nice if, even as this issue is settled, you would demonstrate some little leadership. It is little enough to ask, given how little you have all done to help the afflicted people, rather than add to their burdens.for so very, very long.
Take the step, the right step, the necessary step. Claim all the glory and the kudos. You have not earned them, but it's the way you do business, leaders in name, seldom in fact. So, then, do your business without further ado. We have waited enough.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Christopher Hessman http://ProvenAutomatedBiz.com. Check out AutoBlog Syndicate -> http://www.ProvenAutomatedBiz.com/?rd=kk0GLQbI
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