Same-sex marriage

It’s interesting to be in Alberta – on the edge of the Bible belt on top of that – as Bill C-38 passed. It rarely even comes up here and my impression is that it is simply so fervently opposed, why talk about it. You don’t find people sitting around discussing whether or not genocide should be legal. Things everyone agrees on, like opposition to same-sex marriage here, aren’t usually hot topics.

I tried to bring it up with some of the more apparently enlightened people I know here and they all just huffed, “so stupid” they indicated. I just don’t understand the mindset – where can the controversy even come into this one? – how can an intelligent person in the 21st century be AGAINST a RIGHT!? That’s all we’re talking about – expanding RIGHTS! The inbred rednecks that panic at the mention of making same sex marriage legal seem to forget the key word in that phrase – LEGAL, not MANDATORY!

I don’t particularly want to listen to country music all day, but I don’t think it should be illegal. That seems like the bottom line to me, we want to pretend we’re a great, enlightened nation, how can anyone be against allowing people to live their own harmless lives, no matter how bigoted and homophobic someone is I can’t imagine how the paperwork of a couple who lives on the block could possibly hurt them. I suppose if someone’s really that terrified of homosexuality that’s their issue to deal with, everyone has their own phobia’s, who am I to tell them what they can or can’t be afraid of, I’m not fond of small spaces – but what difference does the couple’s legal status make?

There’s the circular argument that gay marriage shouldn’t be made legal because we need to protect the traditional definition of marriage…which sounds like confused people saying the definition of marriage shouldn’t change because the definition of marriage hasn’t changed in a while. Obviously the whole point of laws in a progressive, democratic nation is to shift with the times. Women have only been allowed to vote in Canada for 87 years, are there people who oppose that change? Slavery has been banned in Canada for 212 years, I think quite a few people support that. Times and laws change, hopefully for the better, expanding rights is pretty much always a good thing – get over it!

Personally I don’t even get the appeal of marriage to start with, just to get divorced again, but that’s a separate subject.

If people want to be upset about people harming our world why don’t they focus on people who are harming our world? Why aren’t people more up in arms about white collar criminals, corporate raping and pillaging of the planet and people who leave their giant SUV’s running outside the gas station for 20 minutes on a hot day while they’re buying cigarettes and sweat shop goods? Or people building endless suburbs and highways rather than stopping for one second to consider the disastrous implications for our future.

Anyway I just caught a bit of the Canada Day celebrations on TV and I always want to be a proud Canadian – travel outside the country makes me more patriotic – and it reminded me of my embarrassment at being here at this moment in political history.

I hope I’ve offended some people so I’ll get some good responses. I’d love it if someone I knew could try to give me an argument against Bill C-38, I wanna hear a reasoned argument from someone whose opinion I respect (even just e-mail me if you don't want to post it). I’m going to head to the park for a Canada Day hot dog…er maple syrup dog? Happy Canada Day!