$1.5 Billion to Promote Marriage

Do we really need to budget in an additional $1.5 billion just to promote marriage in this country? I think the answer is no.

The issue isn't getting people to marry. Heterosexuals do it everyday. In fact, many of the people who so loudly proclaim the need for morality and decency and family values have been married 3 or 4 times and been engaged in one or more very messy, family-breaking affairs (Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, Bob Dole, GW's brother Neil, George Will, to name but a tiny few). I was reading something about a well-heeled woman in Florida, big in the nursing home business and an avid and affluent Bush supporter, who was espousing family values as she ticked off her four marriages.

No, the reason they want to add another $1.5 billion to the national debt is to try to promote heterosexual marriage as an alternative to gay relationships. Forgive me, but as a heterosexual involved in a long-time relationship (almost 16 years), I don't find myself threatened by homosexuals who would like some legally sanctioned ceremony. I grew up being taught by gay teachers (long before I understood what it meant), having friends who were gay, working for and with gays and doing business with gays and never once felt that they were a threat to my continued heterosexuality.

It's ironic and oh so terribly apt that a recent study said that those who felt the most challenged by homosexuality seemed far more likely to be fighting homosexual urges in their own lives. I'm very sympathetic if Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and the right wing feel so challenged by these urges that they need to do everything in their power to deny homosexuals any rights to enjoy the same legal and social benefits they enjoy as married heterosexuals, but I'll be damned if I want more tax dollars wasted because of it.

I sound like a broken record, but we have vets without the health care they were promised when they sacrificed, men and women being sent off to war without proper equipment and body armor, children kept from a normal school schedule because of budget shortfalls, violent (rather than non-violent) criminals being let out of prison early because prisons are broke, and millions of people out of work. That $1.5 billion could be spent in much more suitable, effective ways.