June 26, 2015
Dear Everyone:
Today the
Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, specifically the clause about
“equal protection under the law” for all citizens.
Three cheers for SCOTUS.
What was it all about? It
was about whether or not states could prevent some people from
marrying
other people based upon some arbitrarily-selected criteria.
Now, understand, this type of discrimination has been going on for
millennia.
For centuries, people were restricted from marrying other people based
on what social group they belonged to.
“Don’t marry that person; he/she is The Enemy”.
Case in point:
Romeo and Juliet.
Granted, that one didn’t work out so well.
On the other hand, people were restricted from marrying people who were
too close to them.
Incest:
A Game the Whole Family can Play.
Then there was the whole
mythology directive:
Don’t marry anyone who doesn’t happen to subscribe to your chosen
mythology.
Catholics
shouldn’t marry Jews;
Protestants shouldn’t marry Catholics;
Muslims
couldn’t marry Christians; ad nauseam.
More recently, there were laws about the
color of a person’s skin, or
the shape of their eyes. In
certain states it was
illegal for a person of one color to marry a
person of another color up until 1967.
Not so long ago, huh?
In California, it was once illegal for a person of Asian descent to
marry a person of Caucasian descent.
Most of these arbitrarily-chosen criteria have been struck down, one way
or another, although marrying your sister is still frowned upon.
So which arbitrarily-chosen criteria landed on the chopping block
this time? The
penis.
Society has long indicated through various customs that a Person with a
Penis (P-with-P) is more valuable than a Person without a Penis
(P-without-P). Even today
P-with-Ps, while performing exactly the same work, tend to be paid more
than P-without-Ps.
And when it comes to marriage, the argument is that
P-with-Ps should
only marry P-without-Ps and vice versa.
Why?
Some may declare that the “purpose of marriage is to produce offspring”.
Naturally, P-with-Ps married to other P-with-Ps (and the reverse)
cannot, through traditional means, produce children.
Stuff and nonsense.
Has no one ever heard of using a
turkey baster?
Not to mention adoption.
Furthermore, if the “only” purpose of marriage is to produce
children, then shouldn’t childless couples be forced to annul their
marriage and try, try again?
Of course not.
The fact of the matter is that Society is evolving.
Rules that made sense in a
nomadic or
agrarian lifestyle no
longer apply now. At one
time Society insisted that everyone had to get married and produce
offspring; otherwise Society would die out, something Society did not
choose to do. In this day
and age, when the entire country of
China is trying to
reduce its
population through a plethora of not-very-well-thought-through means,
producing children is no longer Society’s main objective.
Society will proceed quite well even if a tiny percentage of the
P-with-Ps marry other P-with-Ps, and so on.
So why all the uproar?
Have you noticed that the people making the most noise all seem to be
P-with-Ps? Not all, of
course, but a significant percentage.
Could it be that they have the sneaking suspicion that this
“marriage equality” will further erode their preferred status as The
Privileged Male? They talk a
lot about one mythology or another decreeing that Tradition is
sanctioned by this Fill-In-the-Blank-Deity or that.
But “tradition” is just a faster way of saying “that’s the way we’ve
always done it”. And that’s
a fairly comfortable place to hide behind, rather than facing facts.
And the Fact is:
P-with-Ps and P-without-Ps can now marry whomever they damn well please.
Get over it.
Love, as always,
Pete
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