WASHINGTON – Liberalism made Barney Frank’s marriage to Jim Ready possible, because the politics of conservatism turned nature into something other.
Mr. Frank, famous for his tirades, appeared close to tears as his sister, Ann Lewis, walked him down the aisle. He was trailed by a few hired photographers and by Ms. Kucinich, who leapt with joy as the bridegrooms appeared and snapped dozens of photos for an album that she planned to present as a gift to the couple. – At Barney Frank’s Wedding, Vegan Soba and Pelosi on the Dance Floor
There are a few conservatives in favor of gay marriage, including some libertarians, but the philosophy that spurs equality on is based in liberalism.
Conservatism is by definition confined, limiting and austere; seen through Republicanism, it once included the libertarian notion of individualism, with women’s full freedoms something Republicans once respected. Now they don’t; today’s extremism intending to bind women in an existence that’s parched and patriarchal, while denying a person’s basic human right to self-determination based on gender. It also forbids equality based on sexual orientation, hidden piously in religiosity used cravenly as a shield.
Liberalism is open, expansive and inclusive; seen through the Democratic, it once had the foundational tenet of championing peoples’s civil rights first, with the self-determination of women a primary objective. It has now collapsed in compromise through alleged “inclusion” of conservatism that restricts women’s ability to be free. This compromising of liberalism’s heart and sacrificing of a primary tenet also brings inequality based on sexual orientation.
It’s not enough for politicians to proclaim rights; he or she must pursue their implementation through policy unflinchingly, because anything less relinquishes our very humanity.
Moving towards conservatism, as it’s meant today, moored to patriarchal religiosity that demands adherence to rules existing outside of actual human experiences, all people lose. One irony is that the basic golden rule that we are each other’s keeper is wiped out by the very people who proclaim religion as their guide.
Liberalism is the only thing that saves us from our egos and the fantasy that one person knows best for another, replacing freedom with bondage to some manufactured code that lives only in the minds of mortals.
Marriage is a tough choice in the modern world regardless of your sexual orientation, with half of marriages ending in divorce. Kids bind two people on a path of mutual creation, which is seen as the purpose of marriage, now that we’ve advanced beyond dowries and matches for property.
Of course, I disagree, believing modern partnership offers options. What’s needed to make a relationship work is a common purpose to create something together, which is often children, but absolutely doesn’t need to be anymore. But a creative mutual purpose is very necessary, I’m convinced.
If you choose partnership, the impetus is to join together in a shared life that involves the creation of something together or an investment in each other on some level that binds you in some way on a life path that revolves around something beyond yourselves.
But the happiness of these two men, Barney Frank and Jim Ready, can’t possibly mean the destruction of the meaning of marriage itself, as is the contention of conservatives, wherever they reside on the political scale. In fact, their union is the very manifestation of everything marriage is intended to mean and something in which all people are entitled to celebrate, which no one has the right to impede.
Taylor Marsh, a veteran political analyst and former Huffington Post contributor, is the author of The Hillary Effect, available at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Her new-media blog www.taylormarsh.com covers national politics, women and power.