New Amendment Misleads

Ray Buffington, editor-in-chief

Smell that? It’s the stench of the results from the past election day that had more un-needed legislation, the smelliest of it all being Proposition 2, the allegedly “anti-gay marriage” amendment to the Texas Constitution.

Yes, this amendment prohibits the marriage between same-sex couples. But has anyone thought to read between the lines to see what the amendment is also going to do?

Obviously not, with all the anti-gay rights groups who marched around with their ignorant signs and hateful remarks, promoting an amendment they are not fully knowledgeable of.

But I find it funny and ironic. Little do these gay-bashing-homophobic-probably-barely-graduated-from-elementary-school-dying-to-pick-on-someone-because-tipping-cows-got-boring-followers know, the amendment is going to affect a good majority of them as well.

The wording of the amendment is pretty simple, but simple words can be twisted to trick people. It reads “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

The obvious point one would think this amendment was prohibiting would be, of course, gay marriage. But the word “any” includes more than just the gays. This amendment also will prohibit common law marriages from having the rights married couples do.

That’s right folks. If you are a man and a woman, have been living together for two years or more, consider each other as husband and wife without the white dress and expensive ceremony, and have been receiving the tax breaks and benefits married couples do… say goodbye to them.

People have been so anti-gay-happy that they have shut their eyes and ears and supported an amendment that they don’t fully understand. And I have to laugh!

While they are trying to tighten the noose around the gays, the same rope that was used for the noose for the gays is also tightening around their necks. Funny how fate works.

It is not like it isn’t already illegal for gays to get married, so why the extra cement on the already rock-hard law? It boggles me as to why the Texas Legislature decided to try and pass something like this. Maybe they didn’t know that the wording they were hoping to use for their cause would also hurt their fellow heterosexuals.

Then another breakthrough occurred recently. If one were to dissect the proposition a little further, one could technically outlaw ALL marriage.

The word “identical” is the key to this gasping revelation of the not-so-well-put-together amendment. According to “Webster’s II – New Riverside Dictionary”, “identical” means “1. Being the same. 2. Exactly equal and alike.”

I believe if the amendment states it will not recognize anything “identical” to marriage, then the definition of “identical” alone annuls all current and future marriages.

So, I ask the ignorant, conservative, anti-gay, pro-Proposition 2 leaders to add that nice little tidbit of information to your morning bowl of Wheaties. Not only did you hang the gays, you have hung yourselves.

Maybe if our Texas government hadn’t been so eager to strip equality, in a land that seems to hold it so high, from the gays, they would have taken their time to write out a proper amendment and not make them look like idiots in the process.

I’ve been involved in many debates over gay marriage and why or why not it should be allowed. The most common of the rebuttals against gay marriage being it is against God’s will, according to the Bible, the desire to keep the word “marriage” sacred and only between a man and a woman, and also the ever-so-lame belief that once gays are allowed to marry, then that will open the door for people to start marrying their pets and other animals, if they chose to do so.

However the Bible defines the word “marriage”, or how homosexuality is “wrong”, the main thing that burns me is the lack of separation between church and state. Not everyone in the United States is a Christian. Therefore, the laws that they have to abide by should not be Christian-oriented. Whether or not gays should be allowed to marry should be a matter of rights, not beliefs.

This is the land of equality, right…? If a heterosexual married couple is given tax breaks and the like, then homosexual couples should be offered the same. The straights are given a leg up in the world just because they happened to be born with a love for the opposite sex, while the gays are denied the BASIC rights the straights take for granted.

As for the definition of the word marriage, let the heterosexual, uber-Christians keep it. If one wants to define marriage as “a union between a man and a woman”, then give the gays the title “civil union” – “a union between two persons of the same sex”, along with the nice benefits two people who are together, and have a certificate from the state saying so, receive. Homosexuals who want to marry care more about American privileges than words.

The idea that once gays are allowed to marry, then people will start marrying their pets is absurd. Granted, I am sure there are some beastiality-animal-loving crazies out in the world, but their animal lovers don’t have to deal with social security numbers and tax season as humans do.

I’m a vegetarian, and really care for all animals, but I never compare humans to them as identical. I don’t think we should eat them, but I also don’t think they need a 401k plan, or rights to see their ill significant other in the hospital.

While I may have this editorial column to rant and rave all I please, ranting and raving hardly put a halt on the monster amendment such as Proposition 2. Even now that the voting is over and we are standing in the rubble of what was left of our dignity, I’m still just a little gay Democrat in a big, bad, close-minded Republican state.

The best I can do is band with my fellow liberal brothers and sisters and pray the Texas Legislature does not booze up on moonshine and begin to write out random amendments that will soon make it illegal for us to vote, or even strip us of our freedom, due to incorrect wording. God bless America? How about God help Texas.