Guns & Love: Courage & Cowardice

I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that more Members of Congress have come out in favor of same sex marriage than for gun control.  Trying to figure out why that is is likely to lead to insanity.  Of course, they are not going to have to actually vote on same sex marriage, that is currently up to the Supreme Court; so it may explain their seeming righteous courage.

After all, talk is cheap; but votes cost money. Oh dear, did I say that?  What I mean, mostly, is that campaign donors look at voting records to rate their representatives.  Politicians who have been accused of having 'said' something can always later say, "Well, yeah, I seem to have said that but what I actually meant was....[fill in your favorite bullshit]...."  But, when they have voted 'yes' or 'no' on something, that is hard to pretend to have been taken out of context.  And so we now have the simultaneous spectacle of some showing some kind of courage, and a majority showing true cowardice.

Over a decade ago, in 1996, our craven Congress voted to enact the Defense of Marriage Act, imposing religious bigotry onto American civil law.  During this coming Pride Month, the Supreme Court will rule on whether all or part of DOMA is constitutional or not.  For this nation, that is supposed to be the beacon of liberty and the leader of the free world, our enlightenment will have come rather late if it comes at all.  In mid April the most remote country on Earth, New Zealand, voted to allow same sex marriage.  Moments later, members of its Parliament rose to sing a Maori love song.  France legalized same sex marriage on April 23rd, and Uruguay is due to follow in the coming days or weeks.  Other nations that preceded us are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Iceland (whose elected Prime Minister happens to be a lesbian), Norway, Portugal,  South Africa, Spain, and Sweden.  Transgender politicians are running for office in Pakistan; talk about courage!

But here, for shame, some of our Neanderthal leaders would rather vote to enable mass murder than love.  With passion, they pusillanimously extol the right of every American to posses assault weapons with enough firepower to kill dozens of children within moments, with their mothers weeping in the Senate Gallery; but are unable to bring themselves to vote to enshrine the right of love for every American.  Such ignorance, such cowardice!

Our LGBT service members and veterans, who patriotically volunteered to defend our nation's freedom, are still denied equal benefits and rights because of who we love.  Due to DOMA there are two categories for family benefits: everything and nothing, depending on the gender of our partners in life.  We await the Supreme Court to correct that national injustice.

As service members and veterans, we were trained to use weapons of war to defend freedom around the world.  For us, the freedom to have weapons of war at home is insanity.  We await Congress to free us from that horror.