Today is International Day Against Homophobia

Connecticut. Maine. Iowa. California. Massachusetts. Vermont, Oh My!

I am a rabid believer in the separation of church and state – the way the Founding Fathers wanted it – and now that the horrors of the Bush Regime can be rolled back, I read this great news recently in The Washington Post (Jacqueline L. Salmon, April 10, 2009): “Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom. The lawsuits have resulted from states and communities that have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those laws have created a clash between the right to be free from discrimination and the right to freedom of religion, religious groups said, with faith losing.”

For example, “A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony.” This brings up a clash of freedom from persecution vs/ freedom of religion. I personally think religions that preach hatred and intolerance do not deserve to be protected, but luckily there is this thing called The Constitution in the USA. You remember The Constitution, don’t you? It’s that piece of paper Cheney used to wipe his ass. “But gay groups and liberal legal scholars say they are prevailing because an individual's religious views about homosexuality cannot be used to violate gays' right to equal treatment under the law.”

And in other news… Oh Horrors! Marriage has been re-defined and then the sky fell down! Oh wait, no it didn’t.

Webster’s Dictionary has modified its definition of marriage to include both same-sex and other-sex couples. So marriage has literally been re-defined – to the chagrin of all you homophobic shit-for-brains out there – and the world did not fall apart. My very happy heterosexual marriage was in NO WAY made less by this, in fact I think it elevates all marriages. Here is what Wesbter’s said about it:

"We often hear from people who believe that we are promoting – or perhaps failing to promote – a particular social or political agenda when we make choices about what words to include in the dictionary and how those words should be defined," associate editor Kory Stamper wrote in response. "We hear such criticism from all parts of the political spectrum. We're genuinely sorry when an entry in – or an omission from – one of our dictionaries is found to be offensive or upsetting, but we can't allow such considerations to deflect us from our primary job as lexicographers."

In other words, objective, educated people are seeing the reality of the modern world, and describing marriage as it IS, not as they think it OUGHT to be. Maybe we should tell Miss California…