wedding bell blues

Lost in the initial post-election din (at least by the mass media which under-reported it) was the fact that on Tuesday 11 states resoundingly passed amendments to ban gay marriage...or, as they euphemistically like to put it, to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The states in question included some one might consider to be among the usual suspects when it comes to rallying to the cause...Mississippi, Utah, Kentucky, Arkansas...and a couple one might have (however naively) thought more tolerant...Michigan and, most especially, Oregon. (The other states involved were Georgia, Montana, Ohio, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.)

Eight of these states took a further step and banned civil unions between same sex couples.

All of the measures passed easily (by a ratio of 6 to 1 in Mississippi, for example.)

The so-called religious right are delighted with themselves and some are even wondering if this issue played a part in Senator Kerry's defeat (one guesses that they were able to conveniently forget that President Bush endorsed civil unions for gay couples just last week.)

And I still don't get it. I don't get why so many people are so frightened by how consenting adults in committed relationships live their lives. I don't understand how lives those consenting adults lead have any effect on those frightened people (clutching their unread and/or selectively understood Bibles to their self-righteous, intolerant breasts)and their own relationships.

The "institution of marriage" has survived a staggering divorce rate and a continuing fraying of once accepted boundaries that have made long-term relationships between men and women without the benefit of a wedding ceremony...and even the once dreaded state of having children "out of wedlock" ("wedlock" being an interesting way of putting it when you think about it)...a common and accepted part of everyday life. And the world as we know it hasn't come to an end.

I just don't get it.