Below are two links to powerful comments on mounting public reaction to California's Proposition 8 and successful ballot initiatives in several states revoking the legality of same-sex marriage within their jurisdictions. One is a special comment by Keith Olberman from Monday night's Countdown. The other a section from the Rachael Maddow Show, seen also on November 10.
I confess to being too stunned to comment on these ballot initiatives, most notably in California, disallowing same sex marriage. The California decision surprised me especially because the state went so decidedly for Obama in the Presidential election. While Obama took no positive position on this issue, support for Obama would outwardly indicate a more liberal attitude to this concern, those supporting the Republican side being more easily envisioned as opposing same-sex marriage.
Obviously, my presumptions were incorrect, tarnishing any sense I had of overall victory for good on November 4, but affecting numerous couples directly involved far more deeply. These measures represent the intolerant imposition of one group's sense of propriety over the entire population, resulting in a growing polarization that threatens new attempts to create a genuinely holistic and pluralistic community. Eight years of fear based national and regional government led primarily by politicians and spiritual leaders who sought to divide one group against another perhaps provides sufficient inertia for what seems a backward move in contrast to other positive change. However, the point really is not whether any one of us agrees with the idea of same-sex marriage. Each of us can choose for not to participate. The point is to acknowledge the deep need of couples, whether of same or differing sex, to express the validity or their mutual commitment in terms of the traditional marriage institution.
Many of us find value in committed partnerships we choose not to define in terms of marriage. We choose this rout for reasons individual to ourselves, and we find these committed unions more or less easily accepted and understood from one community to another. Like those seeking the identity of marriage for committed, same-sex relationships, partnerships such as ours are outside the norm for most communities and are therefore frowned upon by some within any community for not conforming to specific moral concepts. But our sense of exclusion is nothing to what those seeking same-sex marriage must now feel.
Tradition defines marriage in its generally accepted composition simply because the institution was previously needed only to create and legitimize offspring as genuine community members. There is no wonder then that the union between woman and man could be regarded as sacred since it secured the community's authentic continuum. Any love relationship between same sex individuals would be regarded as abhorrent, as it represented wasted energy that could otherwise provide progeny. Such an exclusive marriage concept can be considered understandable during past eras, where community survival was constantly threatened, especially by the comparative brevity of individual life-span. Presently, in an age of comparative longevity in which we generally find ourselves more concerned with global over-population than with ancestral community survival, we place at least as much value on the enriching nature of relationship for participating individuals as for possible children. Our modern world situation at least gives us the communal opportunity to allow for alternative unions without undue threat to community survival.
Our relative views of tradition define our since of community identity and origin. These relative views of tradition also serve to guide us as we develop. Thus, our since of tradition can serve as a guide pointing the way forward rather than confining us to previous concepts. Couples seeking same-sex marriage presently show a sense of tradition as guide when they express their strong need to define love relationships within traditional marriage terms, declaring the essential sacredness of their mutual love. They carry on the essential values developed over time within the conventional marriage relationship. Steadfast commitment between the partners may always have been a essential, but the concept of abiding love between the partners may be comparatively new when placed against the entire span of human development.
Tolerance for differing views and shared willingness to co-exist with those of differing persuasions and outlooks may be more important than overall agreement on this and other issues however. Perhaps this is why the Judeo-Christian tradition has usually recognized the principal: "treat others as you wish them to treat you!" as overriding all other principals. All other world faith communities recognize this overriding principal as well, even though the language and emphisis varies. Each tradition thus has the ideal of mutual tolerance as its overriding regulator, so long as followers view faith teachings in a hierarchical fashion within which this principal envelops all other teaching, imbuing all legality with its essence.
First, "love one another!" - that is: "get along with each other without being overcome with disagreement!" Keith Olberman got it right in his special comment – the rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!" trumps all others and shows us even now how to live together in peace and mutual understanding.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27652443
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#27652792
