So here's a fun game. I thought my critical thinking class was decently liberal cause...well, it's a critical thinking class...and it's honors... but last Friday I learned my lesson. We were assigned to write a one-page opinion paper on any of the topics our professor listed for us. I automatically noticed one I'm pretty passionate about and wrote away. So here's what I wrote:
"Gay marriage should not be banned from the United States. Homosexuality is a completely normal phenomenon just as heterosexuality is. The history of homosexuality dates back far enough that it would be impossible to make an argument that it is “unnatural.” Homosexuality has been observed in over 1500 species of animals. Art of homosexuality in Africa dates back to 2400 BCE and men who were considered to have special powers were raised as homosexuals in early America. Homosexuality was also common in the Aztec, Maya, Quechas, Moches, Zapotec, and Tupinamba civilizations of Latin America before European conquest. If “natural” in defined as “found in nature” then the strong presence of homosexuality in history shows that it indeed is a natural aspect of human life.
While it is a decent rebuttal to state that human sacrifice and eating one’s own offspring were once also considered natural, it is only further proving the point that this is all up to society’s view of morality. Nursing and communicating are also natural aspects of human nature and protests claiming the “disgust” in those two things are hard to come by. It is safe to say that human sacrifice and eating offspring has drastically decreased if not disappeared from society since it has been christened unacceptable. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is not something we can wave our hand at and dispel. It is not going anywhere and we need to address it.
Marriage is defined by Webster as “a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other in the manner of a husband and wife.” Two people of the same sex can easily pledge themselves to one another with the same confidence that two people of opposite sexes can. They can also play the roles of husband and wife. The fact that their love is homosexual and not heterosexual does not discredit it, just as allowing homosexuals to get married will not discredit the “sanctity” of heterosexual marriage. The 50% divorce rate takes care of that.
Believers in the Bible may argue that God was wrathful towards homosexuals. But tracing back to the basics of the Bible it says to love one another. Therefore wouldn’t the love between two homosexuals be more of a positive in God’s mind than the effort spent by some to hate these homosexuals? Also popular is the argument that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. Going by the Bible, not covering your head (1 Cor. 11:6), anxiety (Phil 4:6), eating meat (1 Sam 14:33), not hitting your child (Prov 13:24), braiding your hair or wearing gold jewelry (1 Peter 3:3), calling your biological father “Father” (Matt 23:9), hitting a man in the groin (Deut 25:11-12), joking around (Eph 5:4), and not being perfect (Matt 5:48) are also sins. Let he without sin be the first to cast a stone.
Now while the Ten Commandments may be the basis of our judicial system, they are the same ten commandments of Judaism and follow many of the same themes as written out in the Qu’ran, the basic teachings of Buddha, and Hindi texts. This country was founded by Christians but on the principle of religious freedom. Because of this, the Bible alone should not be any sort of reference when debating governmental issues. It has also been debated that homosexuals can have their own sort of union because marriage is a union under God performed in the church and it needs to stay between a woman and a man. Last time I checked, Atheists, Buddhists, Agnostics, and any other heterosexual who wanted a marriage can get one.
Depriving homosexual couples of the title of “married” also deprives them of the rights of marriage. This means that the couple would not be able to adopt as a couple, gain veterans’ benefits, gain wrongful death benefits for the surviving partner, open joint accounts, leases, or insurance policies, collect Social Security and Medicare together, be protected under the judicial system and a number of other lost benefits.
The short story is, if you’re heterosexual then consider yourself lucky for not having to face the criticism homosexuals still face today. Also, if you’re heterosexual…don’t get a gay marriage. Homosexual marriage wouldn’t bother anyone and it wouldn’t start a slippery slope ending in people marrying their parakeets. Let’s all jump down out of our ivory towers and remind ourselves that marriage isn’t something for the “elite” or those who have earned it. It’s a symbol of love and commitment. Let’s award it to those who are in love and committed."
TURNS OUT my class is ACTUALLY quite conservative and they had a field day telling me that the Bible says it's wrong and they're all sinners, etc. One of the other questions listed, however, was "Is there sufficient evidence to believe in God?" and one girl's opening sentence was literally "There is sufficient evidence to believe in God because the Bible says so." Yep, in a critical thinking class. Now I'm all about religion and spirituality. God and I are BFF. We hang out. But the ignorance and closed mindedness is what really gets me.
But enough about that.
After that little fiasco I decide to choose a topic that was a little further down on the list (she made us read them in the order the questions were typed out) so that I would possibly not have to be sacrificed to the Republican gods again. Quite naturally, the second we sat down in class the next day the professor said, "I'm really interested in [the topic I chose...of course]...who did that one?"
Brilliant.
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