January 28, 2000

In the March 7th primary, Proposition 22 will read, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? It just protects the status quo, nothing more or less. Or is there a message of fear, hate, and shame under the surface?

In the first place, the legality of such a preemptive declaration standing up against a future challenge is highly unlikely, if not laughable. More importantly, though, is the message it would send to homosexuals, their families, their friends, and--most horrifyingly--to their enemies. The initiative process should not be used for "sending messages" to create chilling effects among any groups of our citizenry. We need this like a hole in the Constitution.

I won't argue the Bible's wording about or interpretation of homosexuality. Since no American is required to subscribe to any religious belief, it's not necessary to determine if or how the Christian doctrine stands on the issue. Anyway, it wasn't long ago that religion was used to condemn interracial marriage, so let's stop playing dueling chapters and verse.

We are poised at the threshold of unwinding many mysteries about human behavior in regard to nature versus nurture. The human genome will reveal many preferences and personality types to be genetically based, probably by sequences of genes, rather than a discovery of one "gay" gene. More study will reveal the additional roles of prenatal influences on what each of us becomes. Due to the complexity of human behavior, especially sexuality, there will gray areas that may never be understood, but much more will be known about what is innate than we currently know. We should refrain from legislation that may fairly soon be proven to reveal ignorant hysteria.

But even before such breakthroughs, it's obvious that despite condemnation, pharmaceutical treatment, and psychiatric approaches, nobody yet has found a way to change subconscious sexual attraction. It is as unfeasible to change the homosexual orientation as it is the heterosexual--it just doesn't happen.

On that note, how would "straights" respond to being shamed, threatened, electroshocked, drugged, or "guided," or legally sanctioned into desiring people of the same gender?

It isn't necessary to believe in homosexual marriage to vote down Proposition 22; you simply must recognize a stupid waste of the initiative process when you see it.

© 2000 Cynthia Hahn