A Practical Faith Based Opposition to Amendment One
My first brush with religious intolerance came in the 5th grade, when one Friday at lunch Kathleen Newton solemnly informed me I could not eat meatloaf on Friday because it says so in the Bible. Notwithstanding the fact that school meatloaf wasn't one of my favorites anyway, I demurred.
I did so because I didn't want to get into any trouble. Kathleen was from a devout Catholic family and Friday was the one day she packed a homemade lunch. "You can have fish though," Kathleen offered in consolation. I don't like fish either.
The following Sunday I asked my Baptist Sunday school teacher about this and for the next 15 minutes, listened as he railed against all things Papist and I left wondering if anyone was right. It did not dawn on me until much later that declaring fish was somehow not a "meat" was just one of many sleights of hand some religious folk use.
Take for instance that the county I currently reside in in North Carolina has a law on the books which forbids the sale of beer and wine until AFTER 12 PM on Sundays. Apparently God doesn't care about your practice of imbibing except on that one day, and then only until noon.
On May 8th North Carolina will will vote on Amendment One in an attempt to legally define marriage as between one woman and one man. "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" and sermons about Adam and Eve, the sanctity of marriage as "Holy" have been reverberating from pulpits all across the state for weeks and the lines of division are clearly drawn predicated on belief or lack thereof.
Let me say that I have no problem with religion, religious belief. I am a person of faith myself. But when my faith or my religion becomes impractical to the point at which it impedes the liberty of another, I have the obligation to rethink my position.
I'm certain many in my state who rabidly oppose "gay marriage" are unaware that the NC Department of Social Services which oversees all adoptions of foster children in the state, has been granting legal custody of minor children to gay individuals for a few years now. I don't mean there is a check off box on the application which asks your sexual orientation, what I mean is that any adult individual who passes muster as a foster parent for example, and then does the same on the adoption background checks, is legally allowed to adopt a minor child.
NC does NOT grant adoptive custody to gay couples because NC law currently does not recognize gay couples either by way of civil unions or legal marriage. The custody is granted to ONE individual who may or may not be in a domestic live-in situation. If there is a live-in situation, the other partner must also pass scrutiny but still has NO LEGAL RIGHTS in the lives of the child he or she may bear 50% of the upbringing, support, and love for. In the case of a "divorce" the live-in partner will have no visitation rights. Just as the adoptive parent will have no recourse for child support. These are but a few examples of the injustice gay couples face in my state.
If a law, any law, does not offer equal protection to all citizens, it is a bad law. No one I know would not feel pity and compassion on the stereotypical "single mother" struggling to make ends meet after divorcing an abusive spouse, yet why should we not feel the same empathy for a single gay parent whose live-in relationship has deteriorated to the point that shelter, the loss of a partner's income, etc. has caused a hardship for that parent and the children?
It's too late now to moralize the issue and object to gay adoption. This is precisely where your religion becomes impractical and impedes the rights of another. You should have opposed gay adoption instead of now opposing gay marriage. Leaving families (NC defines a legal family as one parent and one or more children) twisting in the wind like this based on your opposition to homosexuality as a sin, is irresponsible. Call it sin all you want but don't ignore the mote in your own eye when you refuse to support equal protection for children, innocent children who did not ask to ever be in a position where they could not live safely with their own biological parents.
Just as any law that doesn't offer equal protection is a bad law, any law that does not offer ENOUGH protection is also a bad law. Listen two adults can fend for themselves. Vote in opposition to Amendment One on the basis that is is a BAD law which disallows protection of families and minor children. You can do this and still oppose gay marriage. A practical and genuine person of faith will deal with things as they are and not how one wishes them to be.
Yes, I am saying exactly what you think I am saying. Many degenerate Hellbound homosexuals have LEGAL CUSTODY OVER CHILDREN (not my choice of terminology but you get the point) and it is TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
You can oppose this amendment with a clear conscious because the existing statutes do not go far enough and because hundreds of North Carolina families are counting on you to stop saying fish isn't a meat and to once and for all, totally abandon the illusion that God wants you to legislate morality in the first place.
Note: Some of the language used is offensive but is not herein used in an offensive manner but is illustrative of terms often used by proponents of this amendment.