Just legalize gay weddings already...

The past couple weeks, there’s been all sorts of news about the legalization of gay marriages in California. I can’t even keep track anymore of what states allow it and what states don’t. Some states said okay and then overturned it later on referendum votes. Some states allowed it and then a judge overthrew it and others said no and were overturned by other judges. Here in South Carolina, there was a referendum vote last year on the state defining marriage as one man/one woman, which we both voted against, and the measure passed anyways.

You want my opinion? Let them get married. Why should all of you get your knickers in a twist over whether gay couples want to get married? In a world where over 50% of all hetero marriages end in divorce, are hetero couples any better at being married? Maybe we should make it harder for hetero couples to get married? We might not botch it up so badly if we have to work a little harder at it.

Right now, all we have to do is pay for the license and find an official. Hell, any idiot can do that. There’s no test, no class, no real requirements to get this license. To get a hunting license you have to take a class. To get a driver’s license you have to take tests both written and practical. To get married? Fog a mirror. And to get divorced? Apply for legal separation, wait a YEAR, and pay an ass of court fees and associated rigmarole, and then get set free. It’s harder to end it than it is to start it, by far.

But really, why not let gay couples marry? It’s hard enough to find someone you can say you want to spend the rest of your life with, so why deny that to people who just don’t do it they way you see fit? I knew these two guys in Maine, Scott and Paul, and they were a great couple. They’d been together 25 years when I met them. Twenty five years. I didn’t even make it past 5 years with my first marriage. Those guys had a 25-year commitment to each other, and were never allowed to formalize it. That’s a damned shame. Let gay couples have the same tax breaks and tax penalties that straight couples have, and the same pains in the ass for divorces too. Fair is fair after all.

If you’ll let gay couples adopt, and gay couples to have kids via artificial insemination, doesn’t it make sense to allow those same couples to marry and share insurance benefits and survivor benefits and social security benefits? Stop imposing your own morality on the situation for a minute and let people be happy and be married.

So many people start waving their bibles at this question and try to quote scriptures and what not. Well, here, let me quote some right back at you. Judge not, lest ye be judged. If indeed gay couples, and homosexuals in general, are supposedly something against the will of your God, then they can work that out with God when they die, right? Who appointed you the arbiter of God’s will?

And quit trying to tell me they have a choice, because I think that’s crap too. People can’t help who they are hard-wired to be attracted to, no matter how much you try to say they can. I am not hard-wired to be attracted to long-haired women who are a size zero; Daddy likes a lil’ meat with his taters, and I really prefer short hair on women. By and large, the majority of women I have dated have been between a size 12 and 16, buxom, and had short hair. That’s how I’m wired. So, to tell me I should just all of a sudden abandon my genetic predisposition is absurd. The same holds true for my gay friends. They like who they like, and I’m cool with that. You can’t help who you fall in love with.

So if you’re gay, and you live somewhere where they allow marriages, I’m happy for you. If you live somewhere a bit less, shall we say, progressive, I feel for you.