"An open letter to the religious bigots in Colorado Springs on the issue of Gay Marriage in America"
Copyright 2004 by Dorian Beth Wenzel
Hello. I feel a great need to rationally discuss the issue of gay marriage with you. I hear your cries of "immorality" towards my queer family, your rhetoric that gay marriage threatens the foundation of marriage, to be utterly illogical, intolerant, and outrightly prejudiced by your religious bigotry. My first solution to you is that if you don't believe in gay marriage then don't you marry someone of the same sex. It's that easy, if you would only open your hearts and minds to understand.
First off, how can any two people in a loving and committed relationship ever threaten marriage, when they are in fact embracing the very principles of marriage in their lives? Isn't divorce and infidelity the true threats to marriage? And how can my marriage commitment even threaten your marriage? Are you so weak willed that I have that kind of influence on your vows given from your heart to your loved one and your God?
It can't, and doesn't, until you stick your fat nose into my business where it doesn't belong.
Human rights are for all people, even the ones you don't like or agree with, and not a right that has to be earned. It is a right given to all by the same God you profess to love and worship, yet you deny to others based on your religious prejudices. Did not Christ say God's Love covers all sin? And are we not all born in sin? Does not Christ's blood cover all sin? Then stop denying Christ and His redemption for all people, even queers, and then maybe you wouldn't have such a problem with my lifestyle. And because of human rights, we are all equal, all have the right to choose and pursue the path for our lives as we see fit, and to seek happiness as we define it to be. So I ask you, please stop trying to play God, cause you are doing a very poor job of it!
Did Britney Spears' day and a half marriage threaten anyone else's marriage? Did the television show, "Who wants to marry a Millionaire?" make you get a divorce? Then how can you justly say that if I were to legally marry my lover, then our marriage commitment would threaten yours. It doesn't, so stop being childish, selfish and self-righteous. I find your logic on this matter to be a threat to my queer sanity!
And as for the matter of "immorality," how can I be immoral for wanting to grasp the principles of marriage by vowing to commit myself to a loving relationship? Isn't that what makes one's life a moral one? And what gives you the right to judge me as immoral, when especially, you know NOTHING about my life other than I am gay? Doesn't your beloved Bible say it is a sin to unjustly judge another? Did you know I am a Christian too? Does not the Lord Christ Jesus' blood cover my sins also? So then stop denying His redemption for anyone, even someone you dislike. And if you're going to base the standard to marry on morality, then what about denying marriage rights to murderers, rapists, robbers, swindlers, liars, adulterers, and other malefactors, and not homosexuals.
Isn't your judgment of me actually the act of you puffing yourself up with self-righteousness, arrogance and the sin of pride?
And what right do you have to politically put your religiously bigoted judgments onto others? NONE- according to our United States Constitution. I am an American citizen, and by birth am granted the right to pursue my own happiness by my own definition as long as I don't commit crimes that are against our civil laws. Then you want to tell me I am immoral just because of the fact that I am gay, because of your interpretation of the Bible. Well, I don't have to live by your beliefs but by my own, and that was the whole point behind the Bill of Rights.
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!!
You can't claim to support the laws of this land and want your rights to be recognized, and then deny me my rights because you don't like my beliefs and how I live my life. That is the beauty of the ideal behind separation between church and state, so this very issue wouldn't occur. It was put there so a major religion couldn't dictate their beliefs as law to the other citizens in this great country. Why can't you live by this fact and not put your religious judgments onto others?
I find if you really wanted to fight for marriage, then you would do so by supporting the principles of marriage, and leave us queer folk alone. Why don't you work to help counsel people with marriage and family problems? Wouldn't that strengthen marriage that you feel is threatened?
Why don't you work to help single parents so that their children will have the love and support that they need? Why don't you help unmarried couples to commit to loving marriages so that they don't produce illegitimate children?
If you really believed in the institute of marriage, you wouldn't hinder others from seeking it. If you really felt that marriage was threatened, then you would work toward edifying and nurturing marriage, and not towards tearing down another person's relationship commitment.