Outside the margins of any great book, the reader will hear the author's voice whispering its essence. The mindful reader listens and is enlightened.
I'm a gay male, born and raised in New London. When you talk to me about social marginalization, you're 'preaching to the choir'.
Pondering Senator Dean Johnson's taped conversation with the NL-S Ministerial Association, I can only roll my eyes. I scoff at Mr. Johnson, the NL-S Ministerial Association, its organizer Bill Miller, and the lecherous "tape-recorder" himself, Mr. Waldemarsen, and hate-mongers like him.
Senator Johnson shows he is merely a politician; an individual who will say anything to anybody in order to get them to believe he is their proponent.
I'm sure I know some members of the Ministerial Association. I assume their views regarding gay marriage lean conservative if Senator Johnson felt the need to coddle them from a gay marriage amendment by affirming the infallibility of the existing state law against it.
ADVERTISEMENT
I imagine the sentiments put forth in that meeting were much like those of meetings that undoubtedly took place decades ago when slavery was abolished. Senators would meet groups of "concerned citizens" to placate fears. Someone probably said, "Senator, what if blacks move here?" The Senator maybe said something like, "Don't worry, we've got laws in place to keep them from becoming a problem." Thankfully, black people were eventually given the right to vote. Perhaps some "concerned citizens" realized they were wrong.
One day marriage will be defined by love between two people, regardless of their genders -- not by religious ideology and an antiquated moral code that never made sense.
Sexuality is not a choice. It is not a lifestyle. It is not debatable.
I am going to be an uncle for the first time this summer. I hope that in my niece's lifetime, things will be different. People will be more informed -- more enlightened, if you will.
So, put down your newspapers. Listen to what's being written in the margins.
Life is the book. God is the author. She's whispering to all of us.
Ryan M. Quale
Minneapolis
