Love and marriage (or maybe not)

Disappointment is the word that keeps coming to mind.

How else do you describe the overwhelming support of a ban on gay marriage, which about 75 percent of Texas voters approved as an amendment to the state constitution yesterday? The passage of Proposition 2, stating that a legally recognized marriage is only between one man and one woman, made Texas the 19th state in the union to add a definition of marriage to its constitution.

Think about this. We as a people have told a segment of our population that their personal relationships, which for all intents and purposes is exactly like anyone else’s personal relationship, is invalid. It doesn’t count. It’s somehow less. It may be a crude comparison, but it brings to mind the Jim Crow laws of an earlier generation. It used to be easy to look back toward that time and think, “How far we’ve come; thank God we’re smarter now.”

Well, we’re not. Thanks to narrow-minded ignorance and willful fundamentalism, we continue to take steps backward, to times of hateful intolerance. We are not a progressive country. We’re not a fair country. More and more we become an example of stunted thought and twisted values, instead of an example of an ideal that no one can even believe in anymore. Today, the American Way is the wrong way. It’s too easy to believe McCarthyism, lynchings and back-alley abortions are just around the corner.

Sadly, voters have confirmed everything people think when they think of Texans; backward and ignorant conservatives who still wish it was 1950 so they could thump their Bibles and shoot their guns without some hippy ruining it for them. Don’t fool yourselves, Texans – you’re bigots.

And don’t believe it when you hear the amendment wasn’t about religion. Neo-cons have been reaching out to church leaders and religious groups to mobilize them into voting blocs with an agenda to inject the church into government.

While following the results with about 100 fellow Proposition 2 supporters at Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, the amendment’s author, Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa, said in the Austin-American Statesman, “That's overwhelming. We could have gone home and sat down and still won.”

And there was also this: “Kelly Shackelford, president of the Plano-based Free Enterprise Foundation, steered the pro-amendment Texans For Marriage, tapping conservative evangelical pastors, including minority ministers.”

In the same story, there was this about the governor: “Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican seeking re-election next year, issued no comment, though he's been an amendment backer, signing a copy of the proposal at a Fort Worth church in June, speaking privately to supportive ministers and recording an election-eve telephone message sent to 1 million households calling Tuesday a ‘last chance to save marriage’ in the state.”

This is maybe the most aggravating idea surrounding the whole issue. What exactly are we saving marriage from? I’ve been married 10 years, and in that entire time there has not once been a homosexual couple that has influenced, affected or had any kind of impact on our relationship. How could it? What does anyone lose by allowing a gay couple to have the same benefits of marriage as a heterosexual couple? In spite of the bleats and barks of the right-wing agenda, there is no moral issue there. There is no valid reason to deny any person what is the right of any other citizen. To do otherwise is to promote hate and discrimination.

Or put it another way: What is there to gain by denying gay marriage? Is it a step toward making homosexuality just go away? Does it mean you can stop living in fear of being jumped and raped by some fag? Will it make it more likely you won’t catch “gay?”

Yes, it does sound ridiculous.

The only comfort is that my home district of Travis County was one of the few, if not only, communities to vote against Proposition 2, opposing it by a margin of 60 percent. Shamefully, my former home of El Paso County voted in favor of the amendment by 68 percent, according to the El Paso Times. It would be nice to say this was a surprise, but between the heavily traditional Hispanic and Catholic community, combined with the insulated mentality pervading the city, it’s not. Speaking as a Hispanic and a former El Pasoan, cultural machismo, matter-of-fact religious dogma and isolation has not helped El Paso.

This quote from the Times sums up the majority’s thinking there: “Westsider Armando Reyes said his religious views guided his vote for Proposition 2. ‘I don’t like gay marriage because of God’s teachings,’ he said. ‘Marriage should be with a man and a woman.’”

It’s heartbreaking to realize that, in spite of an optimism that people will intelligently and thoughtfully consider an issue, more often than not they won’t. At least, not in Texas.