“This is ridiculous.”
Said Violeta, July 20, 2005, as we sat at the kitchen table and looked at The Toronto Star’s headline that read something like, “Court Rules in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage”.
Me, a bit surprised by her comment and wondering where this would go, went straight to the negative. She then followed up her remark with, “This shouldn’t even be an issue. People should have always been able to marry who they want to marry.” Woah! Did I just hear this 40+ year-old woman correctly? The conversation that ensued? Lovely.
Almost 10 years after Canada made same-sex marriage legal across the country, that one morning at the kitchen table in the Tapia household is one of my favorite and most cherished memories.
I know there are a lot of mixed feelings about Friday’s ruling, this is evident with a quick scroll through of the news feed, but take comfort in knowing that this emotionally charged historical moment will one day pass. In 200 years when most of us are dead and gone, this will be a sentence in the human and civil rights timeline, a paragraph at best. Our friends and families at that time will think about this moment the way most of us think about some of the painstaking work of the Civil Rights Movement, only 50 years ago mind you. Separate water fountains? Separate schools? Black people only being allowed to sit at the back of the bus? People not being allowed to vote because of the color of their skin? Really??? It all sounds so bizarre and foreign to me. Note: Obviously, there is still progress and healing that is needed. And no, I’m not trying to say that both issues are the same.
So while I am happy for many of my friends and family who are now able to do what I’ve been so “lucky” enough to do because I am sexually attracted to men, for me personally, channeling Violeta’s remarks that one lovely day in Toronto: it should have never been an issue to begin with. But that’s just me, someone who has, for as long as I can remember, never had an issue with homosexuality. At the same time, I also believe in a magnificent God who is just too big for all of our small opinions all this fussin’ one way or another. And that folks, is another opinion in the lengthy list of opinions fer ya this week.
Note: here’s an article about gay marriage in Canada ten years later for a potential look into our future.
#amigadelmundo #mypostsarelongandiknowthis
amiga del mundo 