A Matter Of Civil Rights

My response to what happened here in Massachusetts this week, regarding gay marriage, is simple. The legislature is not legally or ethically bound to vote on any proposed referenda. And precedent shows that "taking action" on a referendum doesn't mean having to have a vote. In fact, six out of seven referenda have gone without a vote in the past few years. So this is all sad and pathetic, and hopefully the new legislature will kill it by choosing not to take a vote.

That a matter of civil rights might be put up for a popular vote sickens me. You can't vote away a person's right to get married! Just like you can't vote to have different bathrooms for blacks and whites, or different drinking fountains. Preventing gay marriage is just as stupid and cruel as segregation.

And what could possibly be at the root of such truculence? What motivates the leaders of the "defense of marriage" organizations that spit venom at loving couples who want to be married? Naturally, they are compelled by religion! Only religion could rob a person of his or her ability to reason, or blunt our natural predilection towards compassion. Empathy is the analogue of compassion, and it naturally travels in the minds of every human being. Only a herd of believers of an imaginary super being full of intolerance, malice and stupidity could abandon logic and lenity without collapsing in shame. Without compassion or reason one may as well be a psychopath; a threat to every thinking, feeling person. And when it comes to protecting the civil rights of a minority, a turn to violence is justifiable. If you saw a crowd beating up a fellow on the street, wouldn't you think it right to step in and stop the slaughter? What we have in Massachusetts is a gang of thugs, motivated by their sky-king and funded mostly by out-of-state money, trying to destroy the lives of a small group of people. If they win, the time will have arrived to hit back, literally. I will take pleasure in touching one of those barbarians on the nose, with my fist. I despise violence, but I believe in self-defense.

I'll end with a fantastic quote from Inherit The Wind. It's speaks of a different from of bigotry, the one against science. It also shows how religion can rob people of their brains and hearts. Enjoy.

Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!