I find it fascinating to hear some of the very same people who yesterday were saying that President Obama wouldn't support same sex marriage prior to the election because it would lose him votes, today are saying that his announcement was merely political expediency. You're going to have to explain to me how that one works.
I, for one, always bought his story about how he was evolving on this issue because I experienced the same thing (I expect that many of us share that experience).
My process started when I was in my mid-20's. I was raised to believe that homosexuality was a sin. In college, I made friends with a couple of gay women (although they couldn't come "out" because we attended a conservative Baptist school).
After college I watched as one of them was heading towards killing herself either through drink or suicide over her sexual orientation. We weren't living in the same town at the time so she wrote me letters pouring out her heart over her struggle. You can't care about someone and watch that without being affected. So I started to wonder.
When I was in graduate school, I had a couple of other friends who were gay. Once we spent the night at one of their apartments and talked deep into dawn. What struck me was how much they loved and cared for each other. I remember asking myself what kind of God would call that wrong. If there was a God, s/he had to be all about loving that kind of love.
When I woke up the next day, the journey I had been on for about 5 years was over...I had evolved.
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Jeez, I'm the king of evolution. Evolving, rather. Where I was even a year ago, but two, I shudder to think. For my part I am very grateful for impermanence. I would not want to be where I was, or who I was in it.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of your best pieces, because among other things it gives a clear direction of how we should approach people we disagree with. They are changing, as are we.
Harry Reid: "My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. But in a civil society, I believe that people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married. The idea that allowing two loving, committed people to marry would have any impact on my life, or on my family’s life, always struck me as absurd."
ReplyDeleteI suspect that when you get beyond, "Gay marriage. Yay or nay?", Reid's view is probably the most widely held.