There are many ways we can describe the New York Senate's decision to pass a measure making same-sex marriage legal. We could lay out rustic philosophical arguments as to why such a move for our country was the prudent and rational thing to do. We could also build a 50-foot-tall "straw man" adorned in the ever-patented relics of religious bigotry and set it ablaze with bumper-sticker slogans and rally cries.
Instead, we feel New York State Senator Roy J. McDonald, one of the four state Senate Republicans who voted for the legislation, summed it up best when he said, "You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f*ck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing."
The move by New York to become the sixth state in the Union to recognize the right for people of the same sex to marry underscores a necessary reality: All humans, regardless of who they go to bed with, at the end of the day, deserve access to the same rights.
To many conservatives and religious folk, same-sex marriage represents an encroachment not only upon a "traditional" American institution, but a divine one. While we may disagree with these premises, we acknowledge their constitutional right to adhere to whatever creed, belief system or myth they choose.
To us, the solution seems clear: Take marriage completely out of the hands of the state. (Conservatives, in theory, shouldn't have a problem with this as it would pry the daunting hand of government off of something American and/or holy.) Place it in the hands of churches; they can perform marriages however they want as a ritualistic cherry on top, and allow all states to grant civil unions with the rights normally entitled to married couples to all humans who desire them.
That would be the right move to do.
