Here's a link to a story of great relevance. It's a brief interview from 2010 with an academic discussing marriage among American slaves. Marriage among slaves in America had no legal stature. Marriage among slaves offered the partners no legal recognition in terms of benefits. Marriage among slaves was, quite simply, not what some people today choose to label as a legal union. While a slave marriage would meet today's standard of a union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, it fell out because slaves were not recognized as human beings fully endowed with the unrestricted rights of white folks way back then.
Way back then, in that inconceivably narrow-minded and uninformed dark period of U.S. history. Way back then, when citizens of this republic did not believe all people were created equal or had equal stature under the law-- solely based on the color of their skin.
Anyone in this country today-- anyone who doesn't believe our grandchildren will be looking back in disbelief over the outrage, efforts, and expense spent today, in 2013, to keep gay marriage from being legally recognized-- is quite simply wrong. Discrimination aimed at a person's sexual preference or orientation is nothing short of discrimination fueled by irrational fear. In short, it has no credible foundation and no business residing in the laws of this land.
It amazes and saddens me to see the degree of financial, emotional, and psychic investment this issue requires in this modern society. Then again, we still seem to believe rather strongly that the world's problems can be solved with bullets and bombs. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
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