Why A Heterosexual, Married, North Carolinian Father Of Three Cares About LGBT Equality by Eric L Shepherd
People have historically married for many different reasons: legal, social, economic, spiritual, libidinal, and religious. So stop it with your 'sacred institution' argument and open up some history books. When you say that the Bible is clear about homosexuality, you must also admit that it was also very clear about how to treat your slaves, and the uncleanliness of women during their menstrual period. Listen. Society evolves. Sometimes we leave behind the Bronze Age mentality of the men who wrote the Bible. You want your marriage to be a religious, strictly bible-based marriage? That's fine. Nobody is stopping you from having one.
A very compelling read from a self-professed normal guy. I, a heterosexual, married, Georgia father of two, would like to think I could have written such a plain-spoken argument. The point Shepard is trying to make is it’s time for us to stop this nonsense of denying “other” couples that don’t meet our outdated, Puritanical notion of what a marriage should be the same rights, rewards, and responsibilities that heterosexual couples possess. As he states in his post, we are going to look back on this with the same shame we hold now when discussing civil rights and women’s suffrage. It’s ridiculous and it’s discriminatory. Plain and simple. I’m so sick of the “one man/one woman” argument, I could vomit. Stop it. Put your petty “the Bible says it’s a sin” argument to the side and get over it. Get over yourself, for that matter. Just because you don’t agree (or don’t even like it) doesn’t mean other people’s rights should be trampled on. It’s not a political issue. And it shouldn’t be a religious issue, either. It’s a human one. It’s time to start treating it that way.
My favorite graphic from the post:
UPDATE: As we were sitting at lunch on Sunday, Jayme pointed me to the following article, from which I learned a little something:
Puritans valued the family as the basic and permanent human institution. They permitted no divorce except for abandonment although they would allow an annulment because of infertility. They saw marriage as a civil rather than religious custom. Puritans arranged marriages for their children and no one could marry outside the church. A girl could veto a choice but no one expected her to use the right. Love meant physically caring for someone so romance was unnecessary for marriage. In spite of popular mythology, the Puritans respected a healthy sexuality and saw human sexual relationships as normal unless they became obsessive. They punished illegitimacy albeit gently. When a girl conceived out of wedlock, Puritans generally tried to establish a family. Pregnancies often resulted from the Puritans' curious custom of "bundling." Bundling allowed a courting couple to sleep together in the girl's home provided they were individually bundled. While the Puritans appeared to take a loose position on fornication they severely punished adultery and they executed homosexuals.
Never too old to learn something new! Thanks, Jay!
