The March Toward "Justice for All"

I’ve seen thousands of people naked. I have inspected their insides and outsides, felt their pain and sometimes their souls, and after all that, I can see we all are pretty much the same. That equality in human essence makes it impossible for me to see why gay people are not allowed the right of civil marriage.

We have been told that right would damage the institution of marriage, rock the foundations of the American family and runs contrary to the intentions of our Maker. But the clothing of rationality and God’s word have been used forever to hide the naked truth of racism, sexism and other prejudices. The arguments against the right of gays to civil marriage is no different; if you peel off the clothing, what lies underneath most opposition to civil marriage rights for gays is just naked fear, ignorance and prejudice.

[…]

In the end, though, gay marriage is not about marriage or teenagers, and it is not even about gays as much as it is about us. Over the last 250 years, Americans have slowly chipped away the bias and ignorance used to deprive almost every American except wealthy, white men of equal standing before the law. The right of civil marriage for gays is about continuing that same march toward “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” You cannot oppose it without betraying American values and the rights hard won for you by those victims of prejudice in almost every family tree who fought in their time for the rights we have in ours.

[Dr. Erik Steele, "Offering the naked truth on same-sex marriage", Bangor [ME] Daily News, 6 October 2009; h/t Towleroad.]

Posted on October 6, 2009 at 22.45 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Faaabulosity

2 Responses

Subscribe to comments via RSS

  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Wednesday, 7 October 2009 at 00.04
    Permalink

    That's one excellent piece of exposition.

  2. Written by BearToast Joe
    on Thursday, 8 October 2009 at 12.59
    Permalink

    Well said. And said well.

Subscribe to comments via RSS

Leave a Reply

To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.

I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.