3:39 pm - Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2004
Song:
Spent third period today standing outside the Multnomah County Building cheering on those couples who were able to pick up their marriage liscences for the first time today. In order to bring up the publictiy around the whole thing, the usual three-day waiting period was waived for the day, and those who waited in the rain and cold could obtain thier liscences that day. Tons of people got married the moment they stepped out the doors.
Of course there were protestors, but not nearly the number I feared there would be. Instead about a handful of guys with huge signs warning that gays were perverts and a moment from being struck by lightening at God's hand. Screamed about how God hated Fags.
It's a cliche point, but that doesn't seem to Christian.
Sometimes, they went too far. They screamd at a five year old kid, whose moms had just gotten married, that he should get himself emancipated and leave his mother. Told him is mother was sick a disgusting. Asked the crowe if they'd marry their Hamster, told the crowd that they made God sick.
And beautifuly, in this disgusting display of evil hatred, which has no basis in religion but is instead an extremist view that twists the bible to fit their needs, people did not back down.
To be in the prescence of so much love was amazing. To see the way that the couples looked at one another, the way they held hands, the fact that not one person was afraid, not one person could stop smiling. It was amazing.
It's true, what some say, that by acting like gays are differant and that this is a big deal, we may just be seperating ourselves further. But they've not yet been able to do this, and the first time for everything is a major time.
I stood and cheered and supported something that quite frankly has nothing to do with me personally, but everything to do with me in that it was a outstanding picture of love and how clouded our vision can become when we don't take into consideration that the people who are discriminated against are just as human as those screaming their heads off about fire and brimstone. The people we judge, may judge us to, and who are we to judge anyone at all, because judging is attempting to force someone into the mold of your own morals.
I stood at the threshhold of a massive wave of liberalism today, and it wasn't a political statement anymore, even if last night that is how I translated it. Today was about love and devotion, it was about building a life with someone else, and it was purely about marriage. Becuase love radiated out of each of those people in line, and the woman dancing in support of the marriages, and Nadia and I standing and cheering love on, and really, isn't love what God is supposed to be all about.
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