Putting Faith in My Fellow Citizens

As another Virginia General Assembly comes to a close, I ask myself again why I choose to live in Virginia. The attacks on me and my community came from all angles, attempting to prevent me from adopting, having my own children, and marrying the person I have chosen to share my life with, just to name a few. And yet I choose to stay. In fact, my partner and I are adding on to our home in Fairfax County so that it will grow with our family and be a comfortable place for us to live for a long time to come. [...]

And yet, we will stay here and fight this amendment, because I believe that fair-minded people in Fairfax County will see that this attempt by lawmakers to distract us from real issues only serves to destroy the real moral fabric of our society. I believe the amendment prohibiting any and all legal recognition of my family that will be on the ballot in November will fail once Virginians see that I am not a threat. Rather, my relationship adds to the fabric of my society, and my county. I believe that good, solid, happy relationships make our society stronger, and I believe that the people of Fairfax County will agree. (source)

I hope you are right. My experience of people is that they usually have no problems what so ever in abridging the rights of others, as long as it doesn’t effect them in any way. In other words, people are selfish and easily give in to their prejudices. I personally try not to do that, but I also fail at this at times was well.

I’m not sure that people go to the voting booth to pass a constitutional amendment banning marriage for gay couples, with hate in their hearts. I think some do. I think that some want us to have no rights at all just because they hate us. But that idea is usually done by people who lack education, at least a college degree. And many of them don’t even bother going to the voting booth. They don’t understand or feel the need because they don’t understand how participating will help them.

Many who go to vote against marriage equality have religious leanings and feel that they have a moral directive in keeping marriage from us. One also has to wonder about the thought process of these people. Many of them have a higher education, yet they feel that everything they know about gay people (they may have friends who are gay) is overridden by what The Bible says about gay people.

They can overlook a lot of what The Bible says about gays. In fact, they do. They overlook the fact that Jesus never once spoke about homosexuality, let alone marriage for gays. Or that it is a sin to divorce. In fact, non of the other sins seems to matter. Indeed, many of these same religious people damning us are on their third or fourth divorce. It must be convenient to have a line item veto on the list of sins from The Bible.

So, I don’t put too much trust in my fellow citizens. The really disheartening thing that pulls me down the most is when I hear that a friend of mine has voted against equality for Kent and myself, after knowing us for years. I like to tell myself that if people just knew us for who we are, their hearts and minds would change. Sometimes that does happen. Sometimes not.

And then some people make it a point to tell us that they agree that we should have the same rights, as though we now have their permission to be equal. Unfortunately, in Virginia, it is very much that way. In fact, in any state that has a voter referendum system, we are at the mercy of the electorate. I have no problem with the principle of the referendum. Where the concept doesn’t work is in the area of civil liberties and basic equality.

Maybe someday, my fellow citizens will be worthy of my trust. Last year in Connecticut I was told by Representative Mike Lawlor, one of the sponsors of the Connecticut Civil Union bill: “Hey, Bill, as a matter of fact, I myself will bring a marriage bill to life next year.” Well guess what? He lied. He said that on February 24, 2005. They didn’t do it this year. And you wonder why I put little trust in people.

I believe the amendment (in Virginia) prohibiting any and all legal recognition of my family that will be on the ballot in November will fail once Virginians see that I am not a threat. Rather, my relationship adds to the fabric of my society, and my county. I believe that good, solid, happy relationships make our society stronger, and I believe that the people of Fairfax County will agree.

I hope that is true.