Saturday, December 5, 2009

NYS Senator Diane Savino speaks on the Marriage Equality bill

This is an amazing speech. State Senator Diane Savino, who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, gave a funny, heartwarming speech about why she supports marriage equality. It's not angry, it's not defensive, it's not mean -- it's a simple laying out of why grown men and women who love each other should share the same civil rights as everyone else.

She also makes some great points here that I've also made in support of "gay marriage" (I hate the term "gay marriage" actually -- it's really civil rights). She says that people are absolutely right to be concerned about the state of marriage in this country but that it's not gay people who are a threat to it. It's we heterosexual people who have turned marriage into a laughingstock and are doing our best to destory it.

Our divorce rate is egregiously high. So are our levels of spousal abuse. We have a "wedding industrial complex" that hijacks the meaning of marriage, making it more about that "one special day" rather than the planning of a life together. On TV, there are these repulsive reality shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette where pathetic men and women who no one wants to marry make fools of themselves in order to "snag" a spouse. And these are the people who have the right to marry!

As Senator Savino says here, if we looked at the quality of the most couples applying for marriage licenses, 75% of them would be turned down.

How are gay people a threat to this? How does letting them marry "redefine" or "destroy" marriage? I just got married this year, and I don't think a couple of gay people getting married threatens my marriage or redefines or in any way imperils the sanctity of this institution I entered into.

Do you know who is a threat to the institution of marriage? David Letterman, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Tiger Woods. We even have websites that cater to men and women who want to cheat on their spouses!

But back to Diane. Her speech was truly a star turn. She has my vote for anything she may ever run for. I'd rather vote for her for president than, oh say, a certain former governor of Alaska. And there are lots of people encouraging her to run for higher office and I sure hope she does.

Go Diane!

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