Gay Rights

I was reading my Astrology book yesterday and as an example birth chart they were using Rosa Parks'. Wow, I didn't really realize how short a time had passed since she refused to give up her seat on that bus. That happened in 1955...only one year before my mother was born! She didn't die until 2005. It's easy for us to think that segregation and all that ended a long time ago. I never realized how short a time span it actually was. I was shocked when I read that that had happened in the 50's. I was thinking something further back like in the 20's or something. This makes me wonder just how much of segragation was actually around when my grandmother was born. I know African-Americans weren't still slaves but if that much segregation existed only 50some years ago what was it like 80some years ago?

And then I realize that today there is still some forms of racial and sexist discrimination. Some people refuse to go in a predominantly black neighborhood because they feel unsafe. Or they treat the opposite sex as less than they are. And then you come across those that discriminate against a person because of sexuality. I was thrilled this past weekend when I heard that Iowa chose to legalize gay marriage. This is another form of discrimination that we need to break down and destroy. In my mind the equation is this: human in love + human in love = love, joy, commitment. Every state needs to legalize gay marriage.

And it's not just gay marriage that I'm an advocate for. Some people (me included, though I'm not gay) don't want to get married. They merely want to have a life partner but don't want a marriage in the traditional sense. Marriage is after all basically a Christian concept. The Christian religion is what says you need to stand before God and say that you love and want to be with that person for the rest of your life. There are similar ceremonies in other religions but the marriage most people think of when they hear the word is the Christian concept.

Whether people are married or not gay people need to have the same rights. They should be able to adopt a child, or have a surrogate mother, or be artificially inseminated without questions or prejudices. They should be able to live together, sign a mortgage together, without recieving weird looks from the landlords. They should be able to (if they choose) marry who they want without worrying about what state it's legal in.

One of my friends is a lesbian. She met the love of her life (and her current wife) online. In order to marry her, she had to move to Canada. Kim already lived in Canada but Kat was from the USA. They chose to live in Canada because in Canada the gay lifestyle isn't so frowned upon. You don't have to worry about where it's legal to marry. And for those of you who want to spit the story of Sodham and Gomorra at me? Canada isn't crumbling to the ground or falling into oblivion now is it? From what I understand they are doing quite well. They have some kinks to work out with the tax system when it comes to two women being wed. Other than that things up there are pretty great.