Boundaries

I have been itching to write for past few days but have been too busy (still have two poster and two HWs to finish by Sunday) but I can't delay it any longer.

A lot happened since I last wrote. For starters, Obama won . Gay marriage was banned in 3 states including California.

I have been listening to radio and TV, scrolling through news for past few days. It's the same theme every where. People are celebrating for electing first African-American President of United States (even though Obama never campaigned as an African American. And as much as I know that was one of the major reason for his success. That and economic crisis.). And when they get over that, they are debating gay rights. And that is what my post is about.

Today morning on National Public Radio they were talking about overturning the ballot in California in a court by declaring that gay community is a minority. Hence majority doesn't get a right to vote on their civil rights (well gays certainly don't get to vote on whether straight marriages should be legal or not.). It is a great argument. In a democracy (where majority wins), the rights of minority should be protected by the constitution. The arguments against it are based on "Overdoing" it. Actually, all the arguments I have heard so far against gay marriage are based on that notion of overdoing it.

For example, this lady who says:

You have no idea what their agenda is. To give you 1 example: If a boy tries to go into the girls' locker room, should he be denied access simply because he is a male? Intellectually, answer is no, but in practice, of course the answer must be yes. A teenage boy say I feel like a girl today and he is allowed to go to the girl's locker room. If he feels like a male the next week he doesn't have to. If you deny his access, he is allow to sue. We want to protect our kids. This is just only 1 example I am giving you. We don't hate gays or Les, they already have most rights we do.

Adoption issue. Go research on the kids who grew up in a gay family if they can tell you weather it is a healthy environment.
Only a few percentage are gays and Les. Only 50% do get married. Those who do get married, another 50% of them get divorce in 2 years. This is out in the open if you go do some digging. Trying to change the nation upside down just to accommodate the few percentage? and put our kids at risk?

Technically gay marriage has nothing to do with locker room access or any school policy for that matter. It only ask voters opinion about whether gay couples be allowed to get married legally. Locker room issue is simply an exaggeration that has nothing to do with current debate. It's a mere speculation.

Having said that, I agree there is always a danger of overdoing anything. The greatest example being our own India, the biggest democracy in the world. We have certainly overdone ourselves in the name of protecting minority in a democracy. Hence the problem of extreme reservation and pseudo-secularism. We live in pseudo-democracy in India. I wonder if some day they will declare that it's illegal to belong to majority. But I digress. We were talking about overdoing something. And that's where the concept of putting boundaries comes in. You need to draw a line somewhere. For example, the argument that eating food makes one fat so we should not eat. The act of 'eating' is not the culprit here, but 'overeating' is. You need to draw a line between eating well and overeating. You need to draw a line between eating for health and eating for taste.

Similarly for any issue, political or otherwise, you need to draw a line. Most of the time it's a line between stepping on someone's basic civil rights and being over-accommodating. None of them is good. None of them is right. But stepping on someone's right for the fear of being over-accommodating is simply ridiculous. And not allowing two person, who care deeply about each other and wants to spend their lives together, to marry is stepping on their rights. This is not right. In any country, in any time.

Another big deal that most of the gay right opponent makes is about "Protecting our children." . I am not really sure what they want to protect their children against. It's not like being gay is a disease or something that one can immune or "protect" their children against. Or are they protecting them against the concept of being gay? May be they think if they don't offer a choice, there will be no gay people.

And lastly, let's not forget religion. For some reason, Churches (an all other religious institute- as far as I know) prohibit gay marriages. And even though I am an atheist, I believe everyone have a right to practice their religious beliefs. They have a right to not acknowledge gay marriage religiously but they should not be able to do that legally. If a Church doesn't want to marry a gay couple, it's their right. But that doesn't give the Church a right to say that they can't be married anywhere else or that they don't have any legal right to be married. That is so wrong.

Anyway, I had enough of these arguments. Most of them have been infuriating me for past few days. And don't get me started with the adaption proposition in Arkansas. According to the proposition, an unmarried couple can not adopt kids. So they don't acknowledge gay marriage then unmarried couples can't adopt kids. And still there orphanages all over the world that are filled with kids. How is that fair? To anyone? As one of my friend puts it:

Okay, adoption by a single parent (take the gay argument out for now). Is it any worse for a child to be adopted by someone than to spend his childhood in foster homes, being passed around? There is a huge influx of adoption from foreign countries. Will that child be better off growing up in an orphanage, or in a home with one loving parent?

P.S.: BTW, California ballot's Prop. 2 (about farm animal rights) passed. Somehow average Californian have more compassion towards farm animals than towards gays. Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer humans over animals. (Not that I opposed Prop. 2 or anything. I am just saying..)