Gay marriage good for family-oriented society

By Josh Knoll

So “Marriage Protection Week” is over. Boy, am I so not relieved. I mean, all these past months leading up, I was feeling scared for all my married friends. I warned them to be careful and on alert for those crafty and sneaky gays and lesbians.

I said, “They will sneak up and snatch the wedding rings right off your fingers and scream in blood-curdling voices, ‘down with hetero marriage! You’re all doomed, you breeders!’ Then down the street they will go, skipping and giggling, leaving you two dazed and battered with a marriage that is worthless.”

A week is just not enough time. Not enough time for me to laugh at the whole notion of Marriage Protection Week, to shake my head incredulously at all those bemoaning same-sex marriage as if it would shatter the institution the minute it was allowed.

There isn’t enough time for my utter disbelief and disgust at our president for approving a week that began on the fifth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death by anti-gay thugs. Nice little touch there, Mr. President.

This whole issue of same-sex marriage has everyone up in arms, with many proposing a constitutional amendment. It would be hysterically funny, if it wasn’t so sad.

The main argument I always hear is that the sanctity of marriage is at stake. What sanctity? You mean of the married man having an affair at work, or the young girl who got knocked up and is marrying her several-years-older boyfriend or a neighbor married three times?

No, the main reason I think so many oppose it is it would finally mean acknowledging the validity of gay and lesbian families and relationships. And that’s where the sad irony is.

Many say that gays and lesbians don’t have “real” loving partnerships or families and they use that to deny them many rights. But when gays and lesbians try to legitimize their relationships through marriage licenses, rings and ceremonies, people still do everything in their power to prevent it, to deny these couples the myriad of rights heterosexual couples automatically enjoy—rights that many take for granted.

What is so threatening about two people wanting to declare their love and desire for each other, to announce to the world their decision to make a commitment and to celebrate it? What is so frightening about a couple wanting the ability to provide for each other, to insure security for their children and each other should the unthinkable occur?

Yes, civilization was built on the concept of family and marriage—families of relatives and loved ones, of comradely soldiers fighting for the same cause, of women banding together to determine their own course of lives, of marriages of ideas to produce better health care and cities and of marriages of kingdoms and business associations.

Recognizing same-sex unions would finally say, “Yes, your families are just as important and worthy, are just one more piece of foundation that civilization was built on.”

Let me also add if you feel the sanctity of your marriage, its worth and its importance are so easily threatened by any couple, gay or straight, wanting to celebrate their relationship, then your marriage didn’t mean as much to you. Only you, through your own behaviors and attitudes, can diminish the value of your relationship.

Same-sex marriages haven’t spelled doom for countries that have approved it. And it won‘t here either. Ignorance, intolerance and treating people as second-class citizens, however, will.

— This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu