I had no idea what was going on in this little video. I thought he was practicing before he asked for real. The big reveal at the end brought a lump to my throat.
I think it’s a brilliant little ad for a huge issue that is taking place all over the world, in this case Ireland, and the creators of the ad approach it with such beautiful simplicity.
So many people look at gay marriage as a religious issue, or that it is tradition to call marriage a union between a man and a woman only, so why change it.
Well, not too long ago in our history, inter-racial marriage wasn’t allowed. It was illegal, in fact. And many people probably looked at a black and white coupling as not quite real. This is how people are looking at gay marriage now, pushing terms like “civil union.” It’s not quite real, so give it another wording.
Of course, in Canada, it is considered and called marriage. It was met with much criticism and controversy, and even Stephen Harper had tried, after being elected, to re-open the debate by changing the definition of marriage to the “traditional” definition. He was thankfully shut down, and now, hopefully, has more important things to worry about.
Ultimately, gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Not a religious issue. Not an issue of tradition. And just like it seems ridiculous to us now to have denied inter-racial couples the right to marry, soon I hope it will seem ridiculous that those in power were denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.
Bookmark on Delicious- Digg this post
- Recommend on Facebook
- Share on Posterous
- share via Reddit
- Share with Stumblers
- Tweet about it
4 comments
MPot says:
29 December 2009 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5)
Of course it’s a religious issue if your religion forbids it, even if it’s also a civil rights issue. The two are not mutually exclusive — I’d say the degree of overlap is quite enormous. And traditions are involved as well, of course, whether or not it’s a civil rights issue. And, of course, it’s also a moral issue. More overlap. Much more complex than a “it’s a civil rights issue or it’s a religious issue” binary can handle.
Amy Breen says:
29 December 2009 at 8:40 pm (UTC -5)
It is a religious issue for people who make it a religious issue. It’s not inherently so. And in terms of the law, it is *only* a civil rights issue. There can be people who disagree with it for religious and moral reasons, but that should not affect whether a marriage is recognized by the government. There is a separation of church and state for a reason.
Colin says:
29 December 2009 at 7:06 pm (UTC -5)
It’s not complicated at all, MPot.
Gay people pay taxes. They are entitled to full representation and rights under our government, providing they meet all the attendant responsibilities. Full stop. No church should be forced to contravene their own in-house rules, but let’s not forget that churches also do not have a monopoly on marriage…by any means.
Or to put it another way, “Render unto Caesar…”
MPot says:
29 December 2009 at 10:16 pm (UTC -5)
You both seem to have misunderstood me. I didn’t claim that it wasn’t a civil rights issue, I claimed that a false binary was being set up, such that if it were a civil rights issue that would entail that it was no longer a religious issue. That, I claimed, was simplistic.
The problem with declaring something a civil rights issue is that the very notion of civil rights entails a set of moral assumptions claimed to apply to the relationship between a state and its citizens. Those moral assumptions are no less in need of justification than the moral assumptions made by the Falwells of the world. The mere fact that they’re assumed as “common sense” requirements by self-satisfied liberals means they exert an illegitimate force in political debate.
The government doesn’t recognize every possible form of marriage. There isn’t a single person alive or dead who believes it should. The issue is which marriages it should recognize and which it should not, and, most importantly, on what grounds. Should those grounds be the assumed fact that each partner pays taxes in the district or state in which it seeks to be married? That might be a start, but you’d still have to explain why that should matter.
Once you start trying to justify your positions in these issues, you find that a whole lot of variables are at play — including political and ideological beliefs, religious beliefs, values of every sort, assumptions and traditions, laws, the whole lot.
And that was my point. It’s not, at all, a simple matter.