A dear friend of mine likes to rail about the idiocy of Deflate-gate, the so-called scandal about the New England Patriots deflating footballs in the postseason last year. He noted the 10 hours Tom Brady had to testify and said it should have come down to about 10 seconds.
That is my exact feelings on the debate surrounding same-sex marriage.
Instead it took the Supreme Court to decide that it is legal for two members of the same sex to marry, a decision that should be an absolute no brainer.
To those who protest this decision, I ask this: What is it to you? You don't want to attend a same-sex wedding? Don't go. You don't want your business to prepare a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony? No problem. But really, the fact that two consenting adults want to marry and go about their lives as a married couple, does that affect you? Maybe you don't like it or agree with it or find it dispicable. OK. Fine. Just don't deny basic liberties to two people who don't share your belief.
Please don't cite the Bible. You can find Bible references that denounce homosexuality? I can find Bible references that befuddle and others that make me cringe:
Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material (Leviticus 19:19)
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. (1 Timothy 2:12)
Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters will all the respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel (1 Peter 2:18)
I wear cotton and polyester; I am a woman and refuse to be silent, and I find slavery repulsive. The Bible is a puzzling and marvelous book at the same time, much of it allegory, almost none of it to be taken literally, written in a time when the word homosexuality didn't exist. I try to love one another as the Bible asks, but I want no part of a Bible or an argument of any kind that suggests that discrimination is justified. Perhaps that is your Bible, but it is not mine.
Further, the Bible is not the law of the land. Live your life by it if you will, but do not tell me I have to live mine by it. You don't know me. I might be a Christian, of course. But I might be a Buddhist. I might be an Islamic. I might be an atheist. I might be gay. I might be straight. And indeed I might live my life by a Bible that I interpret differently than you do.
What is it to you? It is my life and if I am not infringing on your liberties, why should you do so on mine?
As Americans we have freedoms in this nation, and one of them is freedom of religion. If my religion isn't yours, it doesn't make it wrong. Do not ask me to belong to your evangelical sect and I will not ask you to belong to my community church, the one I grew up in where people joined together to worship and sing and enjoy fellowship. It was not a place where anyone spewed political beliefs because we are all unique people who do not share the same beliefs. I am allowed to believe differently. I am also allowed to interpret the Bible as I choose just as you are.
I promise I won't tell you what to believe and what not to. If you choose to go to a church that doesn't perform same-sex marriages, so be it. But those churches that open their doors to same sex marriages are not wrong or sinful. They are different from yours. That doesn't make what they do illegal or immoral.
LadySwish salutes a Supreme Court ruling that is nothing more than decency and common sense.
Coming up: Will the Supreme Court decision have an effect on women 's basketball., i.e., will coaches feel free to marry long-time partners? Comment here or email us your thoughts at ladyswishing@hotmail.com
Nicely said. 👍
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