Gay marriage – no longer unthinkable

California’s Prop. 8 and the other gay-unfriendly propositions in various states didn’t pass by any percentage that ought to give prohibitionists any reason to celebrate. Across the country each contest was very close to a 50-50 split. Acceptance is gaining ground, however slowly. Eventually Americans will look at this latest crop of rights restrictions with the same contempt we now hold for Prohibition and Jim Crow Laws.

Gays know full well how dangerous it can be to offend the sensibilities of the godly. Racist and homophobic bigotry should have passed into history, only recalled with shame and embarrassment, a long time ago; it would have were not racial, gender and sexual bigotry endorsed and encouraged by the churches.

As a humanist I won’t excuse any group of humans for treating any other group of humans as anything but equal as it concerns what they are by nature. Gays are no more able to determine their sexuality than are straights. No one ever got to choose their race, genetics, gender, left or right-handedness, hair color or eye color. A few people are born with the ability to be both left and right-handed. A very few people are born with eyes of different color. And a very few people are born with an unconscious, innate attraction to either gender or exclusively to what others consider the inappropriate gender. A very few are aroused by non-human species or young of their own, not capable of consent. Among consenting adults there are generally four choices for the object of your desires; a member of the opposite sex or a member of your own, both or neither. The same limitations apply to handedness. Left, right, both, neither.

Only religious superstition has deemed one to be a terrible evil and the other totally benign, ignoring that at one time the churches considered left-handedness to be a sign of the devil. Why did they quit believing that?