The Human Condition

I was watching an episode of Sex and the City a few days ago, the one where Aiden and Carrie break up for the final time. Near the end I started to feel that familiar tug of wanting to be a couple. Afterwards I started thinking about life and why the yearning to be in an intimate relationship is so strong for us human beings. I started to ask myself, is it an innate genetic need or are we just so programmed by society that we can not resist the tug to be a couple.

No one can deny that being "together" with someone special is out there, everywhere we look. It's in the movies, in books, and magazines. It's in our friends lives, in most of our parents, and in the all of the animal kingdom. We see people with wedding rings on their left fingers, all a constant reminder that the ultimate human condition for us is to be in a couple. And more importantly that if we are not in a couple we are somehow missing out on life's greatest adventure, the supposed endpoint to all coupling; the institution of marriage.

So really, why do we want to be a couple?

In light of the recent ruling that overturned Prop 8 I find that this question is quite important. I am one who understands the basic need for socializing, having friends, and engaging in intimate relationships; but is the logical end to that intimacy marriage? I can see all of the legal benefits but what if we, the LGBTQ community, could get all the beneis that already exist for straight couples who have married, would we actually choose to get hitched? And if the logical answer to that question is no, then why are we putting all of our civil rights eggs in the proverbial marriage basket?

I can say that I view this latest civil rights battle with somewhat dubious eyes. I can see that we are putting ourselves in a very precarious position. I can see we are winning and could quite possibly win the top prize by default, but at what cost? Recently one of the online new sites showed a map of all of the states that have passed laws defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. I looked at all of that mass of color, the color of hate, and I thought, what if? What if we win by default? What if we win by some quirk of legal fate? What then?

Well, here is what I feel "what then" will encompass.

I decided to look up how someone goes about amending the Constitution of the United States. Yeah, the one that all these right wingers hold in such assumed high esteem, the one they seem to think is set in stone.

There are only two ways to amend the Constitution. The process is set out in Article V.

To propose amendments:

Two thirds of both houses of Congress vote to propose an amendment or two-thirds of the states legislatures ask congress to call a national convention to propose amendments.

To ratify amendments:

Three-fourths of the states legislatures approve it or ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states approve it.

I call your attention to my reference regarding the color of hate.

That map I saw was overwhelmingly the color of hate. So, what if we win by default, what if gay marriage becomes the law of the land. Just how much hate is out there? Enough for say 34 state legislatures to ask congress to call a national convention? And what if it is called? Just think of all that political agenda stuff the right wingers just love to pull out every two years? All that fear mongering? All that hate. All that rhetoric about having to preserve the sanctity of family. That institution whose facade covers up all that alcoholism and all that domestic, physical, and sexual abuse. Ever heard the saying, never divulge family secrets? I understand now why it is so important for them to preserve the sanctity of family, it's because they can't handle the truth of what the institution actually is. If the truth every got out they wouldn't be able to handle it. So what better than to just be in total denial. That is why I feel they become so indignant when the institution is questioned; we are in essence questioning the very tenets of their denial and by extension their sanity.

While I'm making the list how about these; the right to an abortion, immigration, and equal rights for women. What about their chance to amendment the Constitution so that the courts can no longer be activist as they like to call it. Ahat about racial equality? Civil rights? Voting rights? States rights?

I can see these right wingers salivating at the very chance to enshrine their political agenda in the Constitution. The same document that they supposedly hold in such high esteem. In one fell swoop they would rewrite society in effect destroying the country and the very document they claim they want to protect.

A scary scenario you say, one that is not likely happen you say. I again call your attention to the color of hate. All it would take is 34 state legislatures to ask and 38 states to approve.

A scary scenario indeed; but as I see it, one that is more likely than not to happen.