Edumacation

So, sometimes I feel that every once and a while people need to be reminded as to what this country was founded on and what makes it GRRR-eat compared to many other countries in the world. I'm not saying I agree with everything this country does, but permissible dissent is one of the things that this country was founded on. It's not always intelligent dissent, but among the many freedoms of this country, unintelligent dissent is one of them.

I was watching this I-report on CNN.com about how California is now allowing same-sex marriages. There was a nice little fluff piece yesterday about this lesbian couple who'd been together for like 50 years, spearheaded lesbian acceptance groups in California, and other good things that really shouldn't be as difficult to create as they were/are. They were the first couple to be given a marriage license the last time San Francisco issued them before the courts stepped in, and they were one of the first to get the new ones. Good for them.

The video isn't particularly comprehensive, but it does show the Yolo Country Office issuing marriage licenses, and, more importantly, some guy protesting the issuing of said licenses. Now again, I don't have problem with protests. Among the things that this country is based is freedom of speech. Let him protest. Whatever. What I take issue with is when he says that his religion thinks that homosexuality is a sin and therefore it is illegal. Okay...strict Christianity does hold that homosexuality is wrong and a sin. Fine. It probably also finds many other aspects of our society highly sinful. I don't know my Christian doctrine; I don't profess to being a religion expert, but I'm willing to bet money that many other once “sinful” activities have since been modernized to not be nearly as sinful. The fact that they pick homosexuality as one of the sins to not get modernized is annoying.

What really annoys me though is that because homosexuality is a sin, it is therefore illegal in this country. WHAT!!!! One of the things that most people seem to forget is that one of the founding principles is a separation of church and state. The point being that there is no official religion in this country meaning you can believe anything you want and by extension you can't infringe one person's or group's religious beliefs on others. I always get annoyed when people find religious convictions and beliefs to be important in their political candidates. Their religion is not supposed to affect your laws! I don't understand why people think this is a good thing. The Founding Fathers (Go TJ!) knew this was a bad idea so they wrote it in to the Bill of Rights. Why people want someone else's beliefs to determine their life is beyond me. Back on topic...You can't have Christian belief as the basis of law. That would be unconstitutional and unfair to non-Christian believers or even Christian believers who don't think homosexuality is a sin.

There were also comment posters saying that they should put homosexual marriage up for (to?) state-wide referendum. That is also just as idiotic. Now, I know that the idea of democracy is put on a pedestal, and I think that democracy is for the most part a good thing, but sometimes the democratic method isn't ideal. One of the few things that I learned in my Latin American politics seminars (and there were very few things I actually learned in those classes) was that democracy is actually the negative popular government. (I think plutocracy is the positive) Now that seems weird, but a democracy is actually a vote by the majority in the interest of that majority. Ideally you'd want the majority to vote in the interest of everybody, but they don't. So even if you put it up for referendum, you still only get a decision that favors the people who voted for the majority decision. Don't ask me how they should vote or how it should be decided, mayhaps it depends on the thought process of the people voting, whether if they are voting in the interests of everybody or just themselves. Either way, referendum voting doesn't really solve anything, it just gives you another opinion that not everyone will agree with.

To sum up since I'm not even completely sure how I got to the last paragraph: If people want to get married, regardless of sexual orientation, then let them get married. They aren't going to suddenly make you marry someone of the same sex. 2nd...On top of that, you can't base law on religious belief. The Bill of Rights forbids it. Not everyone has that same belief so to enforce something they don't believe on them is no different from any other dictatorial society. The point of this country is that everyone is free to believe what they want, regardless of how popular or common that belief is. 3rd) Um...there really isn't a third point except that...well, I'm awesome. I hope all that made sense.

Music listened to while writing this semi-ramble: Some Made Hope-Matt Nathanson