I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, that spanned from ages 10 to 18 when I left for college.  I only went as far as Miami for school, less than an hour’s drive from my home in Lauderdale; I spent my impressionable years in the southeast coast of Florida.  While the culture felt generally pretty progressive, it still reflected the 1980’s and painted a vastly different picture than the Seattle area in the new millennium.  Once, you stir in the heavy Cuban influence in Miami, it gives it a very distinctive flavor.

Naturally, my community deviated even further from what is generically ‘South Florida’.  Growing up Chinese American, this blue-collar, Cantonese-speaking community held their own set of values.  While we didn’t have a centralized physical location, like a Chinatown or International District, we still casually knew each other.  We generally prioritized service and family over love.  By the time I left Florida in 1991, I knew precisely one Chinese couple who had gotten divorced.  People stayed in loveless marriages.

I won’t try to pry apart where from where I got each cultural impression.  While I knew that gay people exist, and divorces occurred, it was always a ‘them’ thing.  We wouldn’t necessarily go as far as banning them legislatively, but we spoke about them in hushed tones.

Accepting the unfamiliar

When I moved to Florida from Puerto Rico (and a Catholic school), they thrusted me into the public school system.  I befriended David, a boy outside of my Spanish-English bilingual classroom.  He was kind, curious, and engaging.  Upon hitting the winter, I asked him what his plans were for Christmas.  His response surprised me, “I am Jewish; we don’t celebrate Christmas.”  At the age of ten, Catholicism was the only religion I knew; however, everything I knew about David told me that he was a good person.  We remained friends.

My high school class numbered around 500 students upon graduation.  As far as I can remember, none of those classmates were (openly) gay.  While anything is possible, this is statistically impossible.  How many times do you have to observe a coin toss as tails before you grow suspicious and inspect the coin?  Statistically, there were dozens of gay students among us, though they were understandably closeted.

I didn’t develop friends who were either gay or divorced until I graduated from college and started my professional career.  Understanding their humanity and their experiences taught me that they were not any different from me.  No, we didn’t have identical experiences, but given the same set of circumstances, that could be me.

The ability to have children

Long before the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, I debated the merits of gay marriage with a friend.  This conversation turned particularly interesting since we had a common friend who is gay.  Marriage implicitly grants spouses many rights by merely crossing this threshold.  Can you legally draw up ‘marriage rights’ documents?  Absolutely, but the principle is that a couple shouldn’t need to do this merely because they’re gay.  He remained unconvinced.

His rationalization, “Gay couples can’t (biologically) have children.  Marriage is, in principle, for the purposes of procreation, and thus it should be limited to those couple who can have children.”  I stopped for a moment to examine his expression, trying to determine if this was a joke or he was serious.  He was serious.

If you truly believe that marriage should be scoped to those who can have children, then logic dictates any condition that prevents a couple from having children is sufficient grounds to deny them marriage; it would otherwise be grounds of bias.  We should legislate that.  This includes:

• The man has had a vasectomy or has another medical condition which prevents conception.
• The woman has had a tubal ligation or has another medical condition which prevents conception.  This includes menopause.
• The couple is gay.

Is this the world we have come to?  In order to legally deny marriage to a gay couple, are we willing to entertain denying marriage to a menopausal woman?  Is your inclination to keep gay couples from mainstream society strong enough to harm others?

Sanctity of marriage

I won’t debate that scripture defines marriage as the unity of man and woman.  However, there are also parts of scripture that prohibit the wearing of wool and linen together.  Do we legislate that?  Fortunately, we generally ignore rules like the latter since it lacks context and applicability for modern times.  Unfortunately, we still pick and choose other verses from scripture to rationalize our biases.  Furthermore, we bludgeon others with it.

That said, if we truly want to have a conversation about ‘sanctity of marriage’.  Let’s examine that in its literal form, which is to say, its definition:

the quality or state of being holy or sacred.

First, I’ll concede that for some a gay marriage violates that state of being holy or sacred.  I personally disagree with you, but I’ll concede that it is the way that you feel.  However, the genders of the couple is not the only way by which a married person may violate the sanctity of marriage.  We only need to recite the traditional marriage vows that include words like “in sickness and in health” and “until death do us part” to get perspective.  Therefore, instances like:

• Rush Limbaugh divorced three times and married four.  Doesn’t this fly in the face of “death do us part”?
• Newt Gingrich further discussed divorce proceedings while his (then) wife Jackie was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.
• Donald Trump divorced three times and caught on a hot mic saying that you can just “grab women by the p*ssy.”

Did I pick examples from the political right?  Absolutely.  People on the political left have their share of indiscretions, but they don’t oppose gay marriage.  You can’t talk about the ‘sanctity of marriage’, and in the next moment praise any of the above as model Americans.  It’s not about their behavior.  It’s about the hypocrisy.

Inconsistent with my faith

Some will assert that gay marriage is inconsistent with their faith and thus it should be disallowed to all Americans.  That our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values.  Bullshit.  How do you walk through doors with that ego?  No, our country was founded on freedom of religion.  It’s literally the first clause in the first amendment.  To suggest that our country should hold one religion over another is literally unpatriotic.

Am I suggesting that you should compromise your principles and deviate from your values?  Of course not.  However, there are many religions that choose to practice their faith in ways that are more restrictive than those outside their faith.  For example:

• Catholics abstain from divorce.
• Jews abstain from eating pork.
• Muslims abstain from eating pork.
• Muslims abstain from food at all during daylight hours in Ramadan.

They don’t, however, try to browbeat you into adhering to their standards.  If your faith stipulates that you can’t wed someone of the same gender, don’t do it…  Just don’t prevent others from doing it.

Gender discrimination

Let’s imagine this scenario.  You move your family into a new neighborhood during the summer.  David, your ten-year-old son, meets a new friend (Bobby) at the local park and discovers they only live a few doors down.  You chat briefly with Bobby as he walks home.  He is polite and looks out for David around the neighborhood.  However, as a responsible parent, you suggest to your son that you’d like to meet Bobby’s parents.  He understands.

While you’re out running errands, Bobby stops by with his father.  Your spouse greets him, and they hit it off.  He welcomes you to the neighborhood and suggests that if there’s anything you need or have any questions, to feel free to stop by.  It looks like they’ll be great neighbors.

A few days later while your spouse is at work, Bobby stops by again with his father.  You greet him and shake hands.  Again, you are welcomed into the neighborhood and invited to stop by if you need anything.  He points to their house.  You find that you both have a passion for gardening.  You too have a great impression of Bobby’s father.

As you both chat about Bobby and his father, you realize that you each remember different names.  Is his father’s name Peter or George?  You eventually realize that you were both right.  You chatted with Peter, and your spouse chatted with George.  Is the mere fact that they’re a gay couple prevent them from being good neighbors?  Think about it, absolutely nothing has changed from a few minutes before.

Will you deny David, your son, that friendship with Bobby simply because one of his parents is not the gender that you expected?  Does that not seem profoundly petty to you?  It does to me.