UNtil death do us part!

We are not gay!

However, we, like everyone else on this planet and in this nation, feel connected to every other being who lives upon this earth. It is the way of life!

The recent law passed in the state of New York has again sparked controversy, both of a moral and a political nature. New York has passed, last weekend, a law that permits gay marriage in that state. It also affects the rest of the nation because people who are not citizens of New York can come into that state and take their legal marriage vows. The moral equivalency of opposition in New York has been voiced by, among others, the bishops of the New York catholic church. They have given voice to the traditional opposition to anything that affects the prevailing order of things.

We can have sympathy with the bishops, up to a point. However, we have been married and divorced three times and that is not a part of the traditional covenant of “until death do us part� that is so prominent when marriage vows are taken by heterosexual husbands and wives. If we were alone in that regard, perhaps there would be no problem except with us alone! The fact is that traditional marriage has been declining across the United States for decades now. Some sources state that the average marriage lasts around fifteen years. None of ours lasted that long. Many people now regard the act of having sex about like what we used to regard the taking of the first kiss on the first date some fifty years ago. So, the moral climate in this nation has been changing for some time now.

We remember an elderly male couple down in our home county of rural southern Illinois back in my youth who had been together for most of their adult lives. We are reasonably sure that they were probably gay. However, no one really talked that much about it when they drove into town in their old pick up truck and did their shopping for the necessities of life. Their money spend just like everyone else’s money spent. We also remember two uncles that we had who lived on the other side of the county who never married in the traditional way and lived together for most of their adult lives. Nothing was ever made of that fact either. We also remember, far more recently, the death of one of the partners in a gay relationship that had lasted for more than thirty years of fidelity and love. The surviving partner went into a great depression and grieved uncontrollably for a long period of time. What is really more important here. The marriage or lack of it, or, the fidelity and the love?

There is so much love lacking in this world today! People unite and break apart at the drop of a hat. Nations and societies are built upon things that last and things that are of value. There will always be the inevitable change that is sometimes progress and sometimes not, that goes on inside of nations and societies. Then, there are those times that come along where things that will affect the future of a nation and the welfare of its people come to the fore front. In the nineteen fifties, sixties and early seventies, it was the struggle of people of color to find their place in the sun. Then, it was the woman’s rights movement that took center stage as they fought, along with so many others who supported them, for their right to equality. All during these long and protracted struggles, the gay and lesbian community has stood patiently by and helped along the way when ever they could. All during this period of time, just as well, these people have watched as their rights were often times trampled. Often times, by those who expressed traditional values to the core. Very few gays have not had at least one experience of being singled out as being different, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Gay people cannot wait until adulthood so that the taunting and the singling out of their youth has finally passed them by. We remember the recent deaths of some young gay college men who could not stand the way that they were exposed or treated and took their own lives to put an end to it all. One of them jumped off of a bridge in New York City.

It can sometimes be such an unfair and cruel world after all!

Now, gays want the simple right that others in this society have to openly express their love and faithfulness for one another. The marriage rate can not but rise with all of these gay couples who have been together so long finally being able to say those words--until death do us part! There will be a rise in the divorce rate just as well because some of these unions will not last. However, will that be any worse than what the heterosexual population has done over the last few decades. We heard a statement made on CNN the other day where a gay couple supposedly together for 31 years contemplated the idea of marriage. The one partner told the other that he had never asked for his hand in marriage in all those thirty one years. They now plan to marry in the fall. We are not all that pleased with some of the gay pride parades where some of the participants walk down the street wearing only their bikini underpants. It is the unions that will be formalized after decades of faith and love that we are going to be most pleased with. It is these unions that will, with or without those vows, survive until death do them part. You can have love without marriage but you cannot long have marriage without a real and deep and everlasting love.

We do not know what the world will look like fifty years from now. And, at 62, we will not likely be here to see what that scene might be. But, we can see, if newspapers are still published then, a picture of some elderly married couple publishing the picture of their fiftieth wedding anniversary for all to see. And, it would be our hope and our prayer that, if it be two elderly men, that this world might be far the better that it has been acknowledged and that it did occur. If that couple who united in New York in the year of 2011 had adopted and raised some children and had given them some love and stability without foisting off on them the cruelty that had been their lot in their own childhood, then that would be so much the better still. Those who think that gay couples are going to raise their children to be only gay miss the point of the whole exercise because the majority of these children will be raised with a love for mankind and a tolerance that is so often sorely lacking across this nation and this world today.

The Bible has many instances where homosexuality has been condemned. It has many instances where other immoral behavior has also been condemned. It also has this phrase from the book of Matthew, chapter seven, verse one--judge not lest ye be judged.

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.