If our Founding Fathers saw our government today, they would be appalled. We have recreated the oppressive government that they sought to destroy. Our leaders have been given so much power that they go beyond protecting us — infringing upon our personal freedoms, including what we are allowed and not allowed to do. How did it get to the point that grown adults can be told how and what they can do with other grown consenting adults? Religion and personal world constructs have fogged our leaders’ vision and led to constraints on some of our most basic human rights, including marriage.
When designing the Constitution and designating powers to the government, our forefathers intentionally handicapped the federal government’s powers. They specifically stated that all rights and powers not specifically granted to the government are designated to the people. This protection of the rights of the people has long since been forgotten, and we are slowly losing the few rights we have left. The federal government was not given the power to determine marriage constructs. Men and women have the same rights, right? If so, why can’t a woman marry a woman? A man has that right, why not a woman?
Regardless of race, class or gender, we should all have the same rights, including the right to be publicly recognized as partners with another person or even with other people for that matter. No ruling body, aside from religious, has the inherent right to determine who can and cannot be married, regardless of sexual orientation. I am not gay, but who cares if I were. People should have the same rights because they are people. No exceptions.
Universal rights should not be the rhetoric of just feminist groups and civil rights advocates, but a concern to us all. We call them human rights because they are the rights of all humans, not just of a select group of superior people. This is an issue that all of us should be concerned about, regardless of our sexual orientation, for the sake of our fellow human beings. Too often we care only about issues that directly affect us. Concern for human rights should be a concern to all, not just the people who are left out.
We all have the same basic rights, regardless of sex, so what is the basis for this restriction? The only plausible reason would be religious. Now how could religion play such a huge role in determining the limits of our freedoms when we have a supposed separation of church and state? We already have established that our government is less than ideal or even what it claims to be.
To reference the powerful words of Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream,” that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal.” One day all will live in a nation where they will not be judged by their sexual orientation, but by the content of their character.
