Today's reading music is brought to you by John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
Really, did you expect a different song?
When yesterday’s Supreme Court decision was announced
stating that the misnomer-ed Defense of Marriage Act* was determined
to be unconstitutional, I found myself doing an enthusiastic happy dance in my
office. I ran down the hall and shoved my iPad, Huffington Post front page breaking news-first, into my friend Tami’s
face. I texted my friend Josh all but squealing with glee, and joined the
Facebook frenzy letting my opinion be known: “Hear that sound? That’s the sound
of walls coming down, of barriers being destroyed. Today is a good day!”
Yes, my friends, I am overjoyed at what this decision means
not only for marriage rights, but for civil rights and human rights and state’s
rights and for the future of my homeland.
But why?
I found myself wondering why I was so happy with this
decision. Why, as a self-identifying heterosexual, Kinsey-1, single woman was I
so freakin’ pleased with a Supreme Court decision that has little to no direct
effect on my life. Why am I such an advocate and ally?
First, the obvious: It’s not all about me. If I have
brothers and sisters being wronged, being denied rights, being discriminated
against, being treated as lesser-than second-class citizens, then I must speak
out. I have a duty to my brothers and sisters—and to myself—to stand with them
in solidarity and use what little position I have to make sure that everyone is
treated as the dignified, precious human being they are.
Second, the emotional: I believe in love. Despite all the
odds, I still believe in that which is said to be the greatest and most
powerful force on earth. Stronger than life, stronger than death, I believe in
love.
I have loved and been loved. I have been in love, and have—twice—thought
that I had found my love reciprocated in another in the form that so many crave,
in the form that leads to so many weddings. I have thus known heartbreak, too, real
and raw and crushing. Once by my own doing and once by another’s I have known
that overwhelming, soul-slicing, chest-constricting pain of losing the one you
love. I know what it is to be under so much hurt that all you can manage is to
just sleep. Since hindsight is always 20/20 I know, now, that this heartbreak
was not due to the fact that there was no love, but because there was different
love. We could not love one another in the way we each needed to be loved.
And so it ended. Clean yet messy. Simple yet difficult.
And while I have come out the other side stronger and
tempered (as often happens with heartbreak if you allow it,) I still would not
wish it on anyone. Beyond that, my heartbreak was caused by nothing so
spectacular as just the natural order of relationship. I can’t imagine finding
the person who I love and who reciprocates my love; finding the person who I
want to be with more than anything else in all the world; who pledges his life,
faithfulness, and loyalty to me forsaking all others; who devotes his time and
energy to me and I to him; I can’t imagine finding this person only to have a
judge tell me that because of it I am unworthy. Love—pure, perfect Love—is the
only thing that makes us worthy despite our unworthiness.
I didn't choose my sexuality. I didn't choose who I fell in
love with. In the words of Scott Miller, “What a cruel trick that you can’t
pick the one you love.” It is indeed cruel, but crueler still is to deny
someone the blessings of that love and the privileges of their country when
they do find it. I don’t want someone else telling me who I can and can’t
marry, so I won’t tell anyone else.+
I am an advocate. I am an ally. And I still believe in love.
_______________________________
* I say “misnomer-ed” because it was really not a
defense of marriage so much as it was a defense of the status-quo traditional
heterosexual union. Striking it down was the real defense of marriage.
+ This is
all within the context of two enthusiastically consenting adults. I realize
that while marriage should imply love,
fidelity, consent, respect, and all the other things that go into making a
relationship work, sadly it does not. Not this side of the Kingdom, anyway,
which is why we have to work at it. What I’m advocating is two people—regardless
of gender, sexuality, race, creed, or ethnicity—consciously working at it out
of a mutual desire to bring a little bit of the Kingdom to earth, whether they
know that’s what they’re doing or not.
