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In the spirit of the University of Maine’s celebration of Coming Out Week and Equality Maine’s initiative to put same-sex marriage on the 2012 ballot — as well as in response to the column “Out, out: Marriage inequality abounds, astounds,” published in The Maine Campus on Monday — today’s column will commence with a personal anecdote.
I’m straight.
Although I applaud my fellow columnist’s attempt to bash, stigmatize and generalize a book and the people who read it, a few issues must be addressed.
First let me attend to Erin McCann’s attack on Christianity and perhaps religion as a whole. The Bible — including the Old Testament, which is used by over half a dozen “denominations” of Christianity and Judaism — can be interpreted differently.
To take an obscure passage from the Bible and apply it to the beliefs of anyone or any religion is ill-informed and just as ignorant as the same people being condemned. The colorful representation of religious people as uneducated bigots is interesting, too. There are “religious people” who are indeed well-educated.
One should never assume people’s views are in direct correlation with the faiths they associate with. This is the same mentality that has so many Muslims fearing for their lives around the world. Just because a Muslim flies a plane into a building does not mean all Muslims are bad. The same could be said about people who think God will wipe out gays with a hurricane.
McCann’s argument is confounding because she identifies the Bible — mind you, she never mentions other religious books — as archaic, but she chasing after marriage, an arguably more archaic institution.
Perhaps the biggest issue here is the idea of marriage itself. If the Bible is archaic, then isn’t marriage as well? If you’re looking for benefits, shouldn’t you try to design and get support for some other “modern” institution that creates the kinds of benefits marriages give straight people without the traditional ties to the past?
McCann writes about a lack of tolerance from the “religious” people she confronted about signing her petition. Is a person’s desire to not sign a petition the definition of intolerance?
I think it could be argued that this specific petitioner’s reaction — writing a column condemning and making caricatures of “religious” people — is a much more intolerant act.
So what if people don’t support gay marriage? Does that make their stance any less credible than another’s?
After saying, “No, I’m sorry” to a petitioner asking for a signature in 2009, I was confronted immediately by her responding, “You wouldn’t be sorry if you signed!”
This is not tolerance.
If one is fighting for tolerance, then shouldn’t we fight for tolerance and equality on every playing field? Single people, especially in the United States, strive to be seen as equals to their straight and even homosexual counterparts. Believe it or not, it’s just as difficult, if not more so, for singles to adopt and even have visiting hours in hospitals. If anything, we should be flying a singles flag in front of Fogler.
I understand the fight for marriage equality is heated and fraught with emotion. I can’t imagine the feelings of loneliness and despair knowing you can’t share your love for someone else with the world.
I am empathetic for both sides of the argument, and apologetic for the radicals who bash homosexuals. Those same people — who referenced the “Good Book” and call themselves followers of a loving, merciful God — are doing just the opposite of what He would do.
What I’m arguing, though, is that there are good ways to go about affecting change, and there are bad ways. Disparaging religion, making reductive claims and alienating the religious population is an example of a bad way.
Ryan Campbell is a fourth-year political science student. His political columns will appear every Thursday.
