I Swear This is the Last Time I'm Bringing This Up...*

Believe it or not, politically, I'm actually kind of a moderate type. The far left makes me crazy with their inability to cope with reality and their unwillingness to let people fail, when, sometimes, people need to fail. I usually believe the answer to almost everything is somewhere in the middle, and wish we had more than two parties to choose from because I don't believe either extreme is going to lead us very well. I would be Libertarian except that I don't trust people to act honestly and with compassion. One of the reasons I went for Obama is that I believed he'd be better about uniting the two sides than McCain.

I also have the unfortunate luck to tend to see all sides of an issue, which isn't necessarily bad for a therapist, but can be difficult in the voting booth. I avoid getting directly involved in political debates because you have to get all extreme to make your point and I usually see everyone's point which, because I also avoid conflict like the plague, just makes me anxious and increases my trips to the bathroom.

I'm also a Catholic by birth, Christian by choice and Unitarian Universalist by practice. I love my country for many reasons, but one of the biggies is that I have religious freedom, and don't have to worry about anyone (except maybe my in-laws) coming down on me for switching to a faith that my heart tells me is the truth.

Unitarian Universalists believe that gay marriage is as sacred a union as heterosexual marriage. Sorry if that offends you, but that's what we believe. And for the first time, I have a cause I firmly, with no reservations, believe in.

I also believe that yesterday, California voters dealt a serious blow to the freedom of religion that we value so much in this country by including the religious beliefs of the majority into the state Constitution. That terrifies me. I think some people really want our government to be Christian excluding all others, and I think the rest didn't fully think through what they were voting for.

What if we decided to write into the Constitution that everyone should celebrate Christmas, or that the only REAL religious text is the New Testament? Ridiculous, right?

This is a bigger issue than gay marriage. Yes, I'm furious that Brittany Spears (no offense, Britt, I'm talking about your younger days, of course) can walk into a chapel high as a kite and legally marry some random old classmate and then realize the next day, "Oops. That was stupid," and get it annulled and everyone just rolls their eyes; but two elderly librarians who have been in a committed relationship for many years are told that Britt's 24-hour impulse is more valid, by definition and by law, than their relationship. Heck, it's so much more valid, simply because Britt is female and Jason Alexander is male, that we have to write it into our constitution.

I've always believed in equality and gay rights and have been against discrimination of all kinds. But we're talking about taking away more than the right to marry. This makes it a bigger issue for me now.

I've heard that some think that gay marriage could lead to people marrying dogs, or some such ridiculousness. Well, I think it's a lot more probable that including non-universal beliefs, based on taking the Bible literally, into our constitution will lead to restriction of religious freedom. And, even as a Christian, I've got a problem with that.

*...unless I think of something new to say.