What God has Joined Together?

This post just goes on and on. You can skip it and just say "Hi!"...or not. :D

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So I'm reading this book, which was introduced to us in a thread some time ago. In this thread we also learned that gays were sinners and going to hell, but we should all be friends, and that America was founded by Christians for Christians and that we should go look it up. But I digress.

The two authors state that their purpose in writing this book is to show why they believe that "opening marriage to gay and lesbian people could strengthen the institution for all people".

They almost lost me for a while, because they keep using the phrase "gay marriage", which bugs me. Marriage is marriage. Should I say I'm "straight-married"? Will that make me any more married? Anyway, they quote that changed my mind is:

Actually, this book doesn't advocate a special type of marriage - "gay marriage"; it advocates strengthening marriage, and extending it as an option for another 3% of the population.

They also discuss their respective backgrounds. Both are Christian. One is a married man, the other a divorced woman. They don't say if they are gay or straight, and for some reason, this absence makes me wonder why they don't mention it. I think they're straight, which is good, considering their intended audience - conservative Christians who are antsy about marriage rights for gays, and, well, homo-sexuality in general.

This book starts pretty slowly, I think. Chapters 1 & 2 are devoted to making the case that people are social animals and that being excluded makes people sullen and anti-social. Get. out. Who knew? Again, their intended audience is not really me, who doesn't need to be convinced.

The Bible gets quoted a lot and also a lot of studies. I find their arguments well thought-out, but they really spoonfeed every single step of logic. I'm hoping it picks up the pace a bit, but then it might lose the intended peeps. But it makes me wonder if these arguments would work well on someone dead set against the whole idea.

I have recently discovered that a person to whom I am very close not only opposes marriage for gay couples, but actually opposes homosexuality altogether. (Too late now - it's a done deal up here.) She can't claim religious beliefs, because she goes to church for weddings and funerals and that's it. Homosexuality is just wrong, she says. How so? I ask. She tried to make a joke argument that gays take the good partners, so us straight folks can't have them. There is so much wrong with this, it's not even a fair game to shoot it down. And here's the thing: this person helped raise me. She helped teach me my value system. I'm convinced that if I could get her to open her eyes just for just a minute...

I've been right before in our littler disagreements. For example, she now acknowledges that sushi is good, and so is feta cheese on a Greek salad. I was right about exercising to cure owie knees and many other things. I see her every week. She's not that old. We're blood-related. I. don't. get it.

So maybe I'm reading this book with hopes of changing someone else's mind. That probably won't work. But I feel really off talking to her now. Blah. This was supposed to be a kind of book review-y thing, so that I could get past wondering about who the authors were talking to, and I made it all about me.

Well, this was really lengthy. Sorry.