A rant

So, you're dating someone special, someone you love. That person gets down on one knee, pulls out a big diamond and proposes. After the tears and hugs subside, you begin the wedding planning process, every bride's dream. The dress, the flowers, the food, the band. Chicken or beef? Where will we sit that crazy uncle? It's the Steve Martin movie "Father of the Bride," two families preparing to come together and act as one, however dysfunctional it may be. The deposits have been made, the dress found. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue? Check, check, check and check.

Now stop.

Mere days before your big day, your wedding is cancelled. No, your fiancé didn't leave you at the altar, your neighbors did.

The people you see every day while you are walking your dog or shopping for groceries have said that you aren't allowed to get married. In fact, you are wrong to even want to.

That's exactly what happened last night in Maine, where 52.7 percent of the state voted to repeal the state's same-sex marriage law, which had been a part of legislature for six months.

The reasons? In today's Boston Globe, Mary Conroy, spokeswoman for Yes On 1/Stand for Marriage Maine, was not shy in sharing her feelings of joy that the sinful gay people will be reduced once again to second class citizens.

According to the Globe, "Conroy said most of the Stand for Marriage supporters are ordinary families who are worried that children will read stories about same-sex couples in schools, that teenagers will be encouraged to experiment with their sexuality, and that same-sex marriage will be widespread. She said that gays and lesbians have won antidiscrimination protections and should 'leave marriage alone.'"

"No one's antigay," she said. "It's just whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa....Not so fast."

I have a few issues with this.

I am a product of 13 years of public schooling, and heterosexual relationships have never been taught to me, so who is to believe that homosexual relationships would start to be part of the curriculum? And even if relationships were taught, I'm sure teachers would have a more difficult time explaining to little Johnny why he doesn't know who his father is than explaining to the class that Timmy has two moms. In a time where the divorce rate of this country is at a whopping 50 percent, a steady home life of two loving parents, no matter the gender, should be praised and welcomed, not shunned. If the sanctity of marriage is most important, we should ban divorce and people getting married on TV.

As for the teenagers, look around, Mary Conroy. According to StayTeen.org, three out of ten girls in the United States gets pregnant at least once before they turn 20, and I'm pretty sure homosexuality is not to blame. MTV has a show called "16 and Pregnant." Jamie Lynn Spears, of Nickelodeon fame, had a baby at 16. Bristol Palin had a baby at 17 and look who her mother is! That's good old fashioned heterosexuality right there. For this woman to think that same-sex marriages will contribute to the problem of teenage promiscuity is utterly ridiculous.

As for Conroy saying that homosexuals should "leave marriage alone" because they already have antidiscriminatory protections, I have to wonder if she cannot see the parallels between this issue and the African American civil rights movement. Is it not the same? Gays and lesbians want to have every right that straight people have. Blacks wanted the same rights that whites enjoyed. Don't we look back on that generation and wonder how anyone could have looked into the eyes of any of the African American students trying to attend Little Rock Central High School in 1957 and told them no? No, you don't deserve to get an education because of your skin color, something you were born with and have no control over. Today, the dialogue has not changed much. No, you don't deserve to be married because of your sexual orientation, something you were born with and have no control over.

As a generation, we will look back upon this time with shame and regret. We will be embarrassed of our intolerance.