Gay Marriage and Labor Unions:
An Editorial DETROIT, MICHIGAN (RLUO) - I suppose like most Americans, the various news items about Gay marriages or Gay Unions to form family units in American society have certainly come to the forefront of thought. I honestly can’t think of a person I know who doesn’t have a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister or other relative or friend who is Gay. A proposed amendment to the United States Constitution against such marital recognition has our current President’s support, undoubtedly with a thoughtful eye to re-election among those who support such a sanction. But in the grand scheme of American society so suddenly at war, rich with hardship, are we to take a stand against our own and deny Americans the God-given right to love, happiness, and yes, being a family? Christ’s Message and Religion Being not simply just a Christian but also a Catholic, I believe that Christ’s message was not complex at all: his message was a heralding of freedom in all its glory of tolerance and love. His whole life and passion focused on loving one another, for which he gave his own life. I find it very difficult to believe that Christ would mold a persona with the ingredient of “Gay” and then withhold that person’s right to the freedom from bondage he died for and then inhibit his own creation from the right to love in a sanctioned marriage. Christ, God, Yahweh, Holy Spirit, Buddha, Allah or whichever religious name you wish to call this Creator; such a Being could not be that mean or hateful. It is diametrically opposed to the whole nature of a loving Creator. Create a human being, mix in the “Gay” ingredient and then the Omnipotent One says, “Sorry, but you are denied love.” I don’t think so. Certainly within the philosophical and ethical responsibilities of a free society that we claim in our own American democracy, we cannot deny Americans that right to freedom. That too is diametrically opposed to the tenets of any society considered to be a democracy. Gays as Family Today’s technologically fast-paced society has caused the American “family unit” to take many forms. Some men and women choose to live together without the legal or religious sanction of the marriage ritual, yet they love nonetheless. Are they a family? Of course they are. Some may not agree with the arrangement, but to be quite frank, it truly is no one else’s business. A “couple” means two and that they choose to be. Who said that Gay Americans cannot be a couple sanctioned, should they choose, by the state, the church or both? The Creator is not cruel. Those who deny Gay Americans’ the right to marriage and claim to be Christian can only be described as hypocrites: they lack the tolerance and love for which their Christian Christ sacrificed His life. As Americans, the marriage ritual has come to symbolize to society that two people are joined together in love as a family with each other. Should children be involved, they are part of that love. Gay Americans have the God-given, ethical, moral, and legal right to be just that: free Americans in a democratically free society with the same rights as all others. For Gay Americans to lose this freedom can only mean, for this great gift we call democracy, one less freedom leading to the resulting question: which freedom shall all Americans lose next? Gays and Labor Unions Having been involved in the labor movement for over seven years as a volunteer, a labor union organizer and a labor union business agent, I have seen labor unions become the seedbed for protecting those harmed in a society that, more often than not, tends to breed fear, greed and self-centeredness at the expense of humankind. Has this same fabric been woven into this current issue of Gay Marriage? Undoubtedly it has. Several years ago, I worked alongside an openly gay man who was one of the best workers I ever worked with. He was well liked and a true American. Who of us has the right to cast the first stone of denying marriage to such outstanding examples of citizens who are woven into every fabric of American life? Gay men and women even live and die for us. Surely not unlike Christ, selflessly giving up their lives to gain freedom for all Americans during times of war and for those abroad seeking that same gift of freedom. Yet, we never knew our warriors were gay, did we? As long as we didn’t know, it was o.k. However, labor unions must again become the time-honored social movement to assure American workers who just happen to be Gay the rights of democracy in the workplace and yes, even further, the right of democracy in their own homes as families. For those of us who believe in the rich traditions of the labor union movement and all that it has contributed to the benefit of American families, we are called upon; no we are mandated, to fight for the rights of Gay Americans to enjoy all the benefits of workers as citizens, as married couples and as families. Let the Battle Hymn
begin.
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