When I was in high school, I was (shockingly) on the debate team. My specialty (again, shockingly) was the Student Congress competition. I loved parliamentary procedure (not to mention Parliament cigarettes. You know the ones, with their little charcoal filters. Very classy. But that’s not why I am here.) I am here to talk about parliamentary procedure and the abuse thereof.
For instance, there was this guy named Mark. (That’s not his real name. His real name was “Mark” but it was a different Mark than the one you are thinking of.) Mark liked to get to speak, as many of us did. That’s how you get points. You talked. The problem is, you have to have something to talk about. Mark did not have anything to say on the subjects we discussed, so Mark had to find a way to bring up the things he wanted to talk about.
The easiest way to do that was to offer an amendment to whatever bill was on the floor. (Ok, “bill” is what a “law” is before it gets passed by a “legislature.” You’re not stupid though. You knew that from School House Rock. “On the floor” is not where we hoped to get each other. Ok, it was where we hoped to get each other, but in the meantime, it means whatever we were discussing at the moment.) So, if you offer an amendment — and get a second (which is not so tough unless you are Mark) — and you get to talk about whatever the amendment is. And here is the thing, your amendment doesn’t really have to have shit to do with the original bill.
So, what does gay marriage have to do with the Constitution of the State of North Carolina? Nothing really. Statutes regulating marriage are the purview of the legislature. They can and should be able to modify them as they see fit. But some jackhole has decided that instead of merely discussing it with his colleagues, he has to make sure that everyone knows what is and is not marriage as defined by the State (or more accurately, as reflecting God’s will through the North Carolina Constitution.)
So, ok, let’s take a quick look at God’s will. If we are talking about Old Testament shiz, the same rules that say “no gays” also say no to scallops, bacon, and by that logic, bacon wrapped scallops. I’m not just trying to be funny; we’re talking like a few lines apart. Also, sorry all you shrimp eaters. Good news for the fellas, though: only the women are bound in marriage. The mens get to marry as many women as we can afford to pay bride price for. No kidding. So maybe we want to reconsider the OT argument.
But what about the New T? What about what Jesus says regarding the gays? Oh, right. Jesus doesn’t say anything. Paul certainly does. He is anti. Of course, Paul is also anti-freeing-of-the-slaves. I’m not saying everything that Paul said was bullshit. But everything Paul said was designed to protect a fledgling community from being destroyed or subsumed by predominant cultures. Given that Christianity is the predominant culture, at least in the Old North State, I think we can relax just a tad.
Oh, and if I forgot to mention Sodom and Gamorrah, it’s because that’s a story about rape and denial of hospitality to the stranger. The story fits better in the immigration debate. If you want it here, you won’t like where it ends up over there.
So here is my point. I understand that homosexuality makes some people uncomfortable. When they say it’s about sin, it’s really about sex and, frankly, it’s about guys having sex. The idea may seem so foreign to some people that they miss the fact that gay people are in their lives all of the time. Being so blinded, or in denial, they see an amendment as a way to talk. To move the discussion off of what the government could be doing (exerting its economic force to revitalize the economy) and trying to focus on something over which it has not influence and never has (love.)