Proposition 8 and the Victory of Love

I truly do not understand this whole thing about homosexuality as a dangerous or wrong thing. I don't believe that love in any form can be dangerous as long as it is not a destructive relationship and I don't believe that same sex relationships are in any way more often destructive than are opposite sex relationships. This is why I am so happy that a federal judge in California recently overruled proposition 8, a proposition that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman and thus effectively bans any marriage between two men or two women.

Now, as I have stated in a previous blog post, I have issues with the institution of marriage and I don't ever plan on getting married myself, but I strongly believe that if a man and a woman have the right to get married, so should a man and a woman be able to marry someone of the same sex if they so wish. Who am I, or anyone else, to say that their love is less valid or less strong than a marriage between two people of the opposite sex? Surely there are several men and women in the world who marry someone of the opposite sex for reasons other than love: financial, unexpected pregnancies, parental pressure, green cards, visas or what will you. If these people are allowed to marry each other for reasons other than love, why should two people who love each other not be allowed to marry each other? The point being, someone else's marriage is none of my business. I am not part of it, and it is illegal for me to be part of it in a lot of countries in the world, so therefore how/when/why they marry is between them. I do not have the right, nor should I have the right, to tell them when they are to marry and who they are to marry. As long as the people getting married are consenting adults, naturally.

In proposition 8, the issue was never whether the parties were consenting adults or not. The issue was instead some people trying to define what love is, according to their narrow framework. Love is endless and vast. It is friendship, family and sexual. It is between men and women, men and men, and women and women. It can be both constructive and destructive. It can be both beautiful and insane. Whatever form it takes, however, it always starts in the individual and it is always subjective. This is why no court in any form can judge what love is and isn't and why there should be no narrow definitions of it. I don't know how my straight friend loves her boyfriend or husband, and so I can also not know how my gay friend loves her girlfriend or wife. It is not for me to say.

To reiterate, I truly do not understand people who are against homosexuality or the rights of these individuals. For that is what we ultimately are, individuals. Why should we have to be defined or judged by whom we love and why should our right be distributed accordingly? The overruling of proposition 8 is a victory for love and for the spreading of love, for not narrowing it down to some outdated definition and for letting it grow. Let's hope it's allowed to stay like this.