Bush’s victory was a painful blow to homosexuals in this
country. Last Tuesday, eleven states passed amendments to their
constitutions banning gay marriage. The common argument for the
legitimacy of this ban is that marriage is traditionally believed
to be something between a man and a woman, and should therefore be
kept that way. Most advocates of the ban argue that not only does
gay marriage violate social norms, but that it is unholy and
wrong.

In ancient Greece, some of the greatest minds the world has ever
seen, such as Plato and Socrates, were among a majority that
commonly cultivated homosexual relationships, traditionally with
younger men. It was believed that these couples were far superior
to heterosexual ones for a few reasons. First, they helped
performances on the battlefield astronomically if you were paired
with your male lover. You would fight harder and better to impress
him and protect him. Second, these relationships were believed to
be more satisfying than male-female relationships, since only two
men could truly understand each other. Greek society was quite
sexist, and thought of women as being inferior.

What bearing go the social norms of the past have on the norms
governing gay marriage today? Social norms forty years ago said
that black people had to drink out of different water fountains.
Since when have social norms been legitimate grounds for us
dictating what society needs? We have no idea what we need. We are
just discomforted by change, and therefore avoid it like a disease
that we don’t want to know anything about. Greek society was
clearly sexist back then. Were they right in holding females down
because it was “normal?” Social norms are fickle, liable to change,
and always benefit the majority over the already unprotected
minorities.

Furthermore, religious definitions have nothing to do with
public policy, or at least shouldn’t. Because the Catholic Church
says gay marriage is wrong does not mean it should be a law. Our
forefathers kept church and state separate for a reason: They were
smart. They knew that government should not uphold majority rights
and social norms, because neither is necessarily right. If the
Church wants to ban gay marriages under their roof, let them. The
government, however, has no right to get involved. Next we’ll be
outlawing other religions because they go against Christian
doctrine. And don’t even start with the whole “sacredness of
marriage” thing. One in two marriages end in divorce, and the fact
that anyone would try to tell me that this union is too sacred to
be tampered with in a legal sense baffles me.

If you are talking about marriage in a legal sense, you are
still outlawing gay marriage in a religious sense. The argument
that it is sacred automatically implies that it is religious, and
therefore not in the domain of public policy. Gays never did not
have the right, they just never had it taken away from them
before.

As shown by Greece, social norms are something that can be
flexible. Plato had no problem with courting men, and the fact that
we are bothered by it now does not mean it will never be something
we could come to accept; if we would just consider it. Our nation
was frightened by the wave of gay marriages in San Francisco and
Boston so they reacted as mankind has always reacted: They
suppressed it as quickly as possible; without giving thought to the
minorities being trampled. When there was a whiff of uprising in
the air in the USSR, any possible traces of it were wiped out,
tortured and destroyed as quickly as possible; this was done to
avoid any free thought or diversity from maybe breaking out and
tainting Stalin’s perfect little world of uniform ideas and
values.

I’m not comparing Bush to Stalin. Bush is a yellow-livered
liberal next to that cretin. I am, however, saying that his backing
of gay marriage bans is wrong-minded. Social norms should not be
laws. If they were, then there would be no need to protect any
freedoms, because we wouldn’t have any. We would all be the same,
and very easy to control. A monkey would be able to govern us.
Perhaps America should reconsider its legitimizing whatever’s
popular in the interests of what is right. The latter generally
benefits mankind far more.

Marshall Johnson is a sophomore studying English.