By Mark Peterson
So lately I'm feeling old. Maybe because as a man living with HIV I've lost so many friends. Maybe it's the fact that I'm beginning to say the things my mother and father said: "You call this music?" and "I remember those pants when they were in style the first time, and no one looked good in them then either" and "Stop picking that."
What ever is happening, I feel as though lately I've seen true evidence of a time warp. And to think I thought the ravages of HIV would have taken me before I became so concerned about ear hair.
The time warp I've noticed places me squarely in Mrs. Greenwald's class on a cold outside, warm and humid inside (steam radiator heat) winter's day during my freshman year of High School. Mrs. Greenwald was old then – very old – like at least sixty. She was four feet something and looked as though a good breeze across those Lenawee fields could sweep her up in a flash. She taught History and Civics, two of my favorite classes (yes, once a geek always a geek) and she had the ability to make you "feel" the moment in time she was discussing. At times she was a mighty mite flurry of passion, eyes wild, voice booming, arms and legs akimbo. At other time she spoke of the human condition in such a sweetly soft singsong that lured one into the true heart of the nature of a specific conflict so that the deepest nuance made perfect sense.
One cold Blissfield day as I dozed off during one of her softer monologues, I woke to her standing next to me. She bent only slightly to whisper in my ear. She said, "Mister Peterson, every moment we fail to see the tenuous balance of human dignity in a political environment is a moment in which we may be giving away our freedoms and our souls." Okay so she got my attention and disturbed me a little. On the blackboard was the year, 1954. Below that she had written, "America lives up to its promise." Then she began to discuss the issues of human rights and equal rights in the "Brown vs. The Board of Education" case.
On some happily unaware level I had assumed that "All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" meant that we actually lived in a country where the truth of this statement is actualized. Thus began my REAL education. For that I'm deeply thankful to one sweet, strong and lovely small woman. Mrs. Greenwald, it's your fault I'm this way.
What she taught me rings in my ears now that the din of the static around same sex marriages has been elevated by so many camps. All are pretty much saying "We're right, they're wrong." It has the legal and constitutional equivalence of the "neeener-neener" defense. Not that that level of thinking is below State Senator Cropsey. Nor is the whole religious reasoning (oxymoron). How many times will we hear people tell us what God thinks about gay marriage in Michigan? I mean, I tell people that I talk to God about it all the time – and she's for it. But they don't take me seriously I guess.
If people want to get married, legally and with a ceremony of their choosing, I believe they have that right. Why do I believe this? Because in 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States said "separate but equal" was NOT equal. Those that skirt this issue with terms such as "civil unions" are just rehashing the same debates made by politicians who helped keep Jim Crow the defacto law of the land for far too long.
It's time that this debate begin to use the words of human and civil rights. Using the religious debate is ridiculous and serves no purpose other than to highlight people's differences. Hyping this issue with tantalizing pictures of same-sex couples in full lovely embrace on the nightly news is not done to show support for the GLBT community in my opinion. The television media only seems to be able to focus on their gnat sized, sex charged, sound bite snippets of incomplete logic. These "teasers" are there simply to do just that. They tease, not give well thought discourse on the issues.
Well, maybe we need to just speak clearly and slowly for them and articulate that this IS a civil rights issue. For those who wonder why this straight guy is even bothered by this issue, it's because once rights are denied to one, they can be taken from others as well. As a veteran, a citizen and the member of the Clergy, I can not in good conscience sit quietly by and watch this circus unfold without lending my energies to see that the freedoms I was willing to die for are not taken away from my brothers and sisters.
Contact Senator Cropsey (517-373-3760. His fax is 517-373-8661). One call is a simple yet powerful way to start.
