In author Kent Nerburn’s book “Simple Truths”, he sums up his chapter on marriage with the following sentiment: “If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers.”
Speaking from over a decade of marital experience, I consider myself fortunate to have found someone who’s allowed me to seek the miracle of marriage and embrace it wholeheartedly. But as both she and I will tell you with great certainty, gender has no bearing on achieving a successful marriage.
I feel like I’m continually scratching my head in bewilderment – asking the same question over and over again. Why would anyone in the United States, a country which affords so many opportunities to so many differing people, continue to deny same-sex couples the ability, the right, to wed?
While opposition abounds I have yet to hear anything truly constructive to help me understand our nation’s reluctance to equally recognize the homosexual community. I suppose the definitive question is what are American’s so afraid of?
I was dumfounded the other day when pictures emerged of protesters opposing same sex marriage – wearing t-shirts with the message “Marriage has a purpose that cannot be fulfilled by people of the same gender.” Really?
Think about this: many heterosexual couples today are plagued by adulterous behaviors, abuse and divorce, which further erodes the entire sanctity of marriage itself. Is this what those t-shirts meant by “cannot be fulfilled by people of the same gender?” From where I sit the track record of heterosexual marriages isn’t all that promising, just look around you. I’m not so sure we heterosexuals have enough experience under our belts to mandate what elephants should mate for life, let alone any two human beings.
And then there’s this – a website called AshleyMadison.com, with some 6 million members, whose sole purpose is to help men and women who are already in committed relationships, find someone to have an affair with. Yes, you heard me correctly, an actual website promoting and profiting from adultery. Don’t believe me? On their website the CEO states that they’ve been “connecting millions of people from all over the United States, Canada and the UK in an effort to increase the likelihood of a successful affair.” Believe me folks, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
So what am I getting at here?
Our argument against same sex marriage continues to be the desecration of the sanctity of marriage. The existence of the popular site above tells me that the real culprits of matrimonial demise are not homosexual couples at all. Look around people. The heterosexual community from politicians to celebrities; housewives to clergymen are defacing this sanctity all by themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll was a Civil War veteran and famed orator during the Golden Age of Free thought – a time in history when people questioned the traditional ideas and thinking of the world they lived in.
One of his most powerful sentiments states, “Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.”
Remember why the miracle of marriage was so meaningful on your special day, and why everyone deserves the same experience – regardless of sexual orientation. Support the powerful gift of unconditional love, instead of propagating hate.