Daniel McQuade: A biblical reason to accept gay marriage?

Call me a Cafeteria Catholic if you want, but my religious views have always been fairly liberal. I don't think everything in the Bible is 100 percent accurate or right, I think it's OK to joke about religion and I think it's a bad idea if you take religion too far.

Wishy-washy might be a little more derogatory term, but I'm cool with that one, too.

I still got ashes yesterday, though.

Ash Wednesday has become one of the biggest holidays in the Catholic Church, despite not being a really important one religiously. Pretty much every mass is packed, and a lot of people proudly walk around with their ashes for the rest of the day. In third grade, we used to wipe them off, but now it's sort of a symbol that, at least a little, you care about doing what's right.

Coincidentally, the day before Ash Wednesday, President Bush declared his want for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. The president's speech came as a reaction to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to allow same-sex marriages, as well as the Massachusetts high court's ruling that allows the issuance of such marriage licenses.

Bush's argument against gay marriage is such: The public is against it, and marriage is simply a union between a man and a woman -- "The most fundamental institution of civilization," he calls it. Bush claims he won't let these "activist courts" decide whether gays and lesbians should be married.

I feel kind of sorry for Bush right now. His (very cute) dog just died. There's still uproar about (lack of) intelligence leading to the war on Iraq. Joblessness is up. John Kerry seems to be gaining in popularity.

Whoops! Did I say that last one? Clearly, this isn't his only reason, but obviously Bush is trying to gain some votes with his anti-gay marriage proclamation. I don't really have a huge problem with that. I mean, he is campaigning for the presidency; he's allowed to do what he wants.

What I do have a problem with is the rhetoric over gay marriage. My favorite is the slippery slope argument, popular among Republican senators whose names rhyme with "Sick Rantorum." Gay marriage will lead to polygamous marriage and then incest and then pretty soon, America will be so immoral that there will be nudity during the halftime of the Super Bowl! It's a great example of a strawman: Incest and polygamy are such totally different situations than homosexual marriage that I don't have the space to get into it here.

And look, a lot of very great people have been raised in normal families, but a lot of just as successful people have been raised in single-parent or same-sex-parent households as well. There's no reason that the traditional American family will be under attack if the next-door neighbors are gay.

Look, homosexuals make up a large portion of the population, and if a large group wants to marry, then why not? Seems like somebody with some good ideas would have been for something like that. Heh.

And OK, so the public is against gay marriage. Maybe -- and this could be going out on a limb here -- maybe the public is wrong. Last I heard, we lived in a republic, not a direct democracy. A lot of people weren't for the abolition of slavery, the ending of segregation and women's suffrage, but laws ended up being changed because people thought about it and realized what was right.

I know I haven't addressed the actual constitutional amendment yet, but it seems like it isn't going to happen. Some will be opposed to the idea and vote against it, others will feel voting for it could be political suicide. Orrin Hatch will vote for it. The chances of a highly controversial amendment actually making it are very, very slim.

But if it does pass, then I think we should allow other possible popular public ideas to become amendments: Now, no poll has been taken, however, but I'd bet that if asked, people would be for the abolishment of parking tickets. In fact, I bet it'd be about 95 percent toward the end of parking tickets altogether. Does that mean we should start a constitutional amendment against parking tickets? Hell, I'd support that.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, imagine how gay couples must feel when the president says they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Or a majority of the public says the same thing. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of a person would try and reach out to people who are so disenfranchised. Hmm.

A lot of rhetoric about problems involving gay issues has this undercurrent: It'd be better if gay people didn't exist. Be it because it's in the Bible or because gay people simply creep some straight people out, a lot of people don't like gays. And, sure, people are afraid of things that aren't like them -- but our goal should be to fight those prejudices and try and accept everyone.

Hrumph. Letting gay people marry. Accepting everyone. Sound like something that, say, Jesus Christ might do?

Daniel McQuade is a senior English major from Philadelphia, Pa., and former 34th Street managing editor. Lone Wolf McQuade appears on Thursdays.

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