In the wake of the recent presidential election, I will once again address a political issue with my blog. I don't want to speak about President Elect Barack Obama. Only time will tell how that choice will affect this country. What I feel compelled to write about is the issue of gay marriage. I've made it known that I support gay marriage. I always have. It has nothing to do with my own sexual preferences or identity. I believe that all humans should have the same rights. As our Declaration of Independence states: " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I don't care in which context these words were first written or what the original intention of the authors was. I care about the words themselves. We are all endowed with certain unalienable rights. Unalienable. For those who don't have a strong grasp of the English language, that means that they are intrinsic, they cannot be disputed or taken away. If we are to use these words of our founding fathers as a tool to make political points, we have to heed all of their words. We cannot say, "Well, yeah, except in this case...." So, if heterosexuals have certain rights, so shall homosexuals. Marriage is a human right. That means all humans, not just some. Since the election, many media sources have been reporting on instances in which people are protesting the decision to overturn gay marriage laws. In California, it was Prop 8. In my own state it was Prop 102. There is a controversy concerning the protesters outside a Mormon church. I agree that the protesters have taken the wrong approach to having their voices heard. Threatening and harming people who don't agree with you is never a good solution. In reaction to these acts, I'm hearing argument after argument why "Yes on Prop 8" should be upheld. 1. Allowing gays to marry is not the same as allowing interracial marriage. Why? Because gays have made a choice. Race is not a choice. They were born that way. Ok, so gays weren't born gay. They choose to be attracted to people of the same sex. I would ask those same bigoted far right heterosexuals if they choose to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. Is it something they could change if they had to? I don't think so. 2. Homosexual marriage devalues the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. I will never understand this argument. So because someone else wants to marry the person they love, my marriage means less? To further delve into this issue, anti-gays claim that homosexuals hop in and out of relationships, that they make commitments willy-nilly. That they don't take long term relationships seriously. The divorce rate in the United States is 50%!. That is 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce. Perhaps the fact that gay people actually want to get married and commit to each other would help decrease that number. Just a thought. 3. Opposers to gay marriage support "civil unions" they just have a problem with attaching the word "marriage" to their actions. What's the fucking difference? Do heterosexuals have a patent on the word "marriage"? If they want to call it "civil union", why don't we all just call our commitments "civil union". That is essentially what marriage is. There is no difference. They just want to argue over semantics. 4. The far right think that if they "allow" gay marriage, they will be acknowledging that homosexuality exists. Just because you take away someone's right to marry doesn't mean you take away their right to love who they want and to express that love. You cannot sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away. I even hate the term "gay marriage." It's marriage! Any way you cut it. As one of my favorite comedians, Liz Feldman, says, "I had lunch this afternoon, I didn’t have 'gay lunch'. And I parked my car, I didn’t 'gay park' it."