Maine voters confirmed last week that in America, when a man inserts something into another man, it had better be a knife. On Nov. 3, gay marriage proponents suffered their 31st defeat at the hands of state voters. Mainers, by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent, voted to repeal the bill signed this spring by Governor John Baldacci. The law would have let a gay or lesbian couple pair up, receive the roughly 1,400 legal rights married couples enjoy and then stop having sex with each other. When will this country come to its senses and let homosexuals receive equal rights?
I have forever been perplexed as to why so many Americans are against gay marriage. After all, allowing homosexuals to marry is a no-brainer. So, I set out to figure out some arguments for the other side.
The opponents say that it threatens the sanctity of marriage. As Bill Maher points out, "Anything that you can do drunk out of your mind in front of an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas" is clearly a sacred sacrament.
They say it threatens the traditional family, that children need to grow up with a mother and a father. Considering 50 percent of American marriages end in divorce, the concept of a traditional family has been reduced to a joke. Why not pass a law outlawing divorce? It is far more harmful to the family and far more pervasive than gay marriage could ever be.
Some point to the fact that the bible decries homosexuality as an "abomination" and a "dysfunction." It also states that homosexuality is curable if one devotes his or her life to God - a theory, as Maher points out, "that worked out so well with the Catholic priests." The bible- thumpers say marriage is defined as between a man and a woman. But they don't say that most biblical marriages were not between a man and a woman, but between a man and multiple women. Weren't Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon all married to multiple women? Hell, why not legalize polygamy? If it's in the bible, it must be okay!
What's equally as disturbing as the opponents' views is the manner in which Americans were able to overturn Maine's law.
When Maine's Governor Baldacci, a Catholic, signed the bill allowing gay marriage in the state, he knew it wouldn't be accepted without a fight. Opponents to the bill, led by the Roman Catholic Diocese in Portland and Stand for Marriage Maine, quickly gathered enough signatures to suspend the enactment of the bill until voters voiced their opinions on the November ballot.
I don't mean to offer a political science lesson here but let's revisit the theory behind our government. Contrary to popular belief, pure democracy was anathema to our founding fathers. Instead, the republican form of government, as laid out in Federalist 10, consists of elected officials "whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of their country," and whose judgment "will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves."
Our founders designed our government to protect a minority (gays) from the "tyranny of the majority" (gay marriage opponents). Unfortunately, a ballot initiative to overturn the right of gays to marry is the very thing our founders intended to protect against.
The Maine legislature and governor were well aware, to quote Maher one last time, that "some people are just born 100 percent outrageously, fabulously, undeniably Fire Island gay," and no oppressive and unenlightened majority, with such ridiculous arguments, should have to right to take their freedoms away.
It seems inconceivable, living in the Skidmore bubble of liberal academia and enlightened students, that gay marriage would even garner a second thought. But voters have told us that there is an army of crazies out there that is refusing to enter the 21st century. Our kids will look back and wonder how gay marriage was ever an issue.
They're here and they're queer. Get over it or the joke will be on you.
Tyler Reny is a junior government major. He enjoys good food, jazz and politics.
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