Marriage carries with it many rights, privileges, duties, obligations and responsibilities.
It is an institution that should be open to all who want to enter into this relationship.
While there are many who want to claim it as a religious act, it is also a secular and legal institution.
A given marriage may be a religious and legal act or strictly a legal proceeding, but it never is a strictly religious proceeding.
All marriages require a governmental license. Many laws are brought to bear with every marriage. The state has a strong interest in all marriages. The church shares some of those interests with those who chose to be married in a religious ceremony.
While one is free to practice their religion in this country, that freedom doesn’t give one the right to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Yet this is exactly what people like Mike Huckabee would like to do. He is opposed to gay marriage. It is his religious belief based upon his reading of the Bible. He demands others to act within what his religious beliefs dictate. The preachers and the churches in the South read the Bible to support slavery at one time and later to support segregation. While we as a society have progressed past these two evils, recent events demonstrate that we have not progressed far enough. No church is being required to perform a gay marriage, but no church should stand in the way of those who wish to have the same rights that others have.
I happen to be a heterosexual. I did not make that choice. Whether it was hereditary, biological development, or my social circumstance that determined this for me, I simple don’t know.
Why one becomes a homosexual or a lesbian is beyond my knowledge, but they are who they are and should have all the same legal rights and protections that I have.
A gay marriage in no way interferes with my rights. Why would I want to stand between two people who love each other? As one who will start my eighth decade before the end of this year, I have seen tremendous progress on this issue. I certainly hope it continues.
Our country has made great social progress in its nearly 240 years. If Mike Huckabee and his like-thinkers would have controlled our past, women could own no property or vote, many married women couldn’t work outside the home, only male property owners could vote, people could own other people, workers would have no rights, and there would be no Social Security or Medicare.
Let us not let the reactionary right turn the hands back on the clock of progress that we have made and will continue to make.