Thoughts on Same-Sex Marriage

It seems I have had Gay Politics on my mind lately. I love a good debate and there have been some interesting ones on AfterEllen as of late. I think I need to just get it all out of my system. I won't barrage you with all of them at once, so lets start big.

Why Massachusetts legalizing Gay Marriage hurt the gay rights movement

When the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared same-sex couples had the right to marry, Conservatives immediately proposed a amendment to the Constitution be written, declaring marriage to be between a man and woman. Same-sex marriage was legalized a few months later and San Francisco started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Bush voiced his support for the aforementioned Constitutional Amendment shortly thereafter.

I try to look at issues objectively and with some measure of logic. I feel no amendment would have been drafted if Massachusetts had not legalized gay marriage. Whether Bush wanted to address the issue at all is unknown, but this gave him little option of avoiding the issue. Conservatives were up in arms over this 'sacrilege' and feared granting us the same rights as every other citizen would harm the moral fiber of the country. We're the cloak heterosexuals use to hide their own faults and sins; obviously we're to blame for the 50% divorce rate in this country.

Obviously I am in favor of legalizing Gay Marriage, but I'm more in favor of passing Federal Hate Crimes Legislation. We're focusing too much our attention on Gay Marriage and letting a hugely important issue like that go unspoken. Does anyone really believe we will be able to legally marry before gay bashing becomes a Federal Hate Crime? The same thing will eventually happen again that happened to Matthew Shepard - Only then we'll revisit Hate Crimes legislation. Sad, really.

It will take years to undo the damage this has caused. Individual states will continue to ban gay marriage while the US Supreme Court refuses to address the issue. Some states still have sodomy laws. Hell, Alabama de-criminalized interracial marriage only about 5 years ago. We're still pretty early in the Gay Rights movement - Too early to push the issue of Gay Marriage in my opinion.

Fun fact: The first same-sex divorces began two months after Massachusetts legalized Gay Marriage. Way to show them we're serious about this marriage thing!