What’s marriage really about?Date: 7/2/2015 Marriage isn’t about religion. Marriage is a civil contract.
I don’t mean to anger my conservative or religious readers at the very start of a column, but the discussions revolving around the Supreme Court decision regarding same sex marriage have compelled me to point out a simple truth.
You are not officially married when you stand in front of clergy. You are married when you obtain the license and fulfill the rules of where you live.
After all, if you seek a divorce you don’t head for a church. You head to a lawyer and a courtroom.
Religion only plays a part in marriage if you elect it to be. And please don’t talk about the Biblical values about marriage. According to the New Testament, Jesus didn’t have a wife and he urged his disciples to leave their homes and responsibilities and follow him, without marrying.
I’m no Biblical scholar, but a simple search of the Internet can reveal a variety of Biblical passages about marriage and relationships that might surprise you to say the very least.
If there is one message that I carry as a Christian is to treat people as I would want to be treated. There are no exceptions there.
Also a more difficult idea is not to judge people unless you’re prepared to be judged.
If you a “Constitutional conservative” I assume that you want to pursue an existence in which government has as little to do with your daily life. So why wouldn’t you support a Constitution that is seen to guarantee equal rights – such as marriage – to everyone?
I wish people would stop hiding behind the Bible or the Constitution and simply admit they don’t like gay people. Perhaps they view them as frightening or they are repulsed by their sexuality.
If so, then we could work on allaying people’s fears. Life is short to worry about something that doesn’t affect you.
Here is a question then: have you ever really looked at what kinds of activities and proclivities fall under the banner of heterosexuality? There’s plenty of frightening stuff.
What two consenting adults do in the privacy of his or her own home is nobody’s business. Wouldn’t that fall under Constitutional conservatism?
In Massachusetts we have seen that having legal same sex marriage has not affected anyone or anything other than the happy gay people who have achieved necessary legal rights through marriage.
Honestly, can you show me a real negative byproduct of legal gay marriage here in the Commonwealth? Nope, I didn’t think so.
There are so many real issues that concern Americans today – the further rebuilding of the economy, climate change and its effect on agriculture and terrorism, to name three – that the focus on gay marriage is just silly.
Movie from local filmmaker
I love it when a local person gets a project off the ground and is now preparing for its release. My friend Marty Langford – American International College film instructor – will be having the world premiere of his documentary “Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s ‘The Fantastic Four’” at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con.
That’s a really big deal.
The San Diego Comic Con has become a huge showplace for all things pop culture and Marty’s film, which reveals a great Hollywood mystery, is sure to get a lot of attention and a great response.
The trailer for the movie has had 400,000 views on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb0z33xu4WU.
Agree? Disagree? Drop me a line at news@thereminder.com or at 280 N. Main St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. As always, this column represents the opinion of its author and not the publishers or advertisers of this newspaper.
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