They r are Not Gay Rights but Human Rights

         

 Though I doubt anyone would recognize it, in the spirit of full disclosure, this column is a re-hash-mish-mash of a column published in 2011, right after the grand city of Appleton extended benefits to same domestic partners. In light of recent events, the words are perhaps more relevant now. So here, with some additions and subtractions, is an oldie but a goody.

I can’t believe three years after this column was first penned, we’re still debating gay rights. I can’t believe we are still calling them “gay” rights.

The right to care for partners when they’re ill, to have a say in their health care, to be beside them when they die and, yes, to marry and parent children without the ludicrous legal stumbling block of having to sign away your parental rights to a child to whom you gave birth, just so you and your partner can adopt them together and be considered equal guardians.

These are not “gay” rights. These are human rights. Basic human rights. Why are we still arguing about this?

No one has been able to tell me how the existence of same-sex couples threatens to shred the moral fiber of their lives.

I still wonder what exactly it is that gets your dander up. Is it the lifestyle? Do you feel it’s your duty to make sure everyone lives “correctly,” which, of course, means just like you? Is it the Bible — the zealots’ permission slip, the manual that tells all self-righteous, sanctimonious thumpers how to live and who to hate? Is it the sex itself, the fact that two people who share a gender also share a bed? What if I don’t like what you do behind closed doors? Can I hate you with impunity? Please don’t insult my intelligence with the “hate the sin but not the sinner” garbage. That’s akin to saying, “I am not racist. It’s just different skin colors that bother me.”

So what do we do when the powers-that-be dress their homophobia in a mantle of moral propriety? Personally, I would rather deal with the Westboro Baptist Church. But when educated people drape a veil of respectability over their prejudice, I never know quite how to respond. It’s gay-bashing at its most refined.

I applaud Wisconsin’s step into the 21st century. I wholeheartedly support giving same-sex domestic partners, many of whom have been together longer than a slew of sacrament-approved one-man-one-woman unions, the right to marry, the right to be there for each other in the best and worst of times.

True, the window of opportunity slammed shut seemingly minutes after it was opened, but a ray of light did get through.

It’s time to rise above the fray. We’re better than this. No one is asking you to accept the homosexual lifestyle but it would be nice if you could accept the homosexual.

I’m still waiting for the day when “gay” is no longer an adjective, when we no longer place that word before “man,” “woman” or “marriage.”

It’s coming. The tide has turned, despite the opposition or, strangely, maybe because of it. My children will see a better country, a country that embraces diversity and makes room for all good people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Blaze away, Wisconsin. Blaze away.

— (Laurie Friedman Fannin is a Hortonville resident. She can be reached at pcletters@postcrescent.com)

 The important thing is, there are still honest of heart people as I wait for their minds to to make the final decision and there is no doubt that if they happen to be good open hearts as mentioned it will be easy for them to see the truth and see that in the little journey we make today in this life we were meant to support each other and not let rules of religion or words of fear take that away..

I would think believers would want to believe a just loving god. To serve a mad violent god and not a loving one, why would anyone want to spend eternity (if you believe in that) with this mad, judging killer of a god? We are born and have a life full of choices. I don’t doubt that somewhere along we have to pay the piper for those choices we make but to make choices of abandoning friends and family because of religious dogma, it seems to me so ungodlike, so merciless, so self-righteous.
 What pride means to us is not just to show colors but to celebrate our accomplishments and our undivided resolve to not have to live closeted out of fear.

 Every year the walks, parades bring the message home which is that we are here and we don’t want to be tolerated but accepted as just any other human being. 
Happy pride to those watching and those doing the lifting.

Adam Gonzalez