When Revenge is no longer justice.

Late last night I received the news that President Obama finally accomplished that which the Bush administration could or would not. Osama Bin Laden is dead… When I first heard this I felt as though I should be rejoicing, happy that justice was finally served, yet the news seemed somehow anticlimactic. The fact is, I did not feel much like celebrating, instead I felt that we as a species were just doing business as usual, solving difficult problems through severely violent means. Again it’s and Old Testament “eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth” mentality. Once again we have reinforced the behavior of solving problems through acts of violence. In that moment I knew that this would not end the violence, that history would reveal we helped to begin. Instead we have served to perpetuate it, justifying it through past acts of violence against us. Violence is a self sustaining beast with no restraints on it’s appetite for fodder. We continue to use the tragedy of 9/11 to fuel and rationalize our vendetta against one group, one tribe. The very group that we armed in order to accomplish our selfish ends in the Middle East. This unfortunately backfired on us. I feel sometimes that we are the schoolyard bully, the one that taunts and threatens, but when it is our eye that gets blackened, we cry foul then escalate the conflict. I suspect that the truth of who perpetrated the first offense, or threw the first punch will not be revealed for some time. I do know that we have done nothing to end the conflict, only serving to continue the strife for what I can only imagine are selfish reasons. I find myself asking, when will we learn that Revenge and Justice are NOT synonymous. There is a sense of finality when justice is served. Revenge is a story with no ending.

Marriage vs Civil Unions.

When the battle over marriage equality began, I wondered why Gay men and woman were so concerned with the word Marriage. After asking many gay friends about this issue I discovered that most agree that it’s not about the word but about equal rights. Those who were insistent upon the application of the word Marriage to their relationship were so concerned because of one religious affiliation or another. This led me to ask, why then do we not push harder for what is constitutionally accepted as separation for church and state? The word Marriage appears to have religious connotations and roots. Marriage ceremonies are usually executed by a Priest, Rabbi, Minister, Pastor, or some other religious authority. As an Atheist, this bears no relevance for me. From my perspective, all such relationships, Gay or Heterosexual should fall under the legal description of Civil Union with no religious affiliation attached. This is after all about law, not theology.  The rights that are granted to one must be attributed to all. Those who wish for their relationship to be sanctioned by one religious institution or another can choose to do so, though it has little bearing on it’s validity or legality.  For some reason we have placed the Religious cart before the Legal horse, allowing theology to determine what is legal or not legal. If history serves me, the Pilgrims who were some of our earliest settlers, fled to this continent to escape such religious persecution and establish religious freedom for themselves. It appears that once again, the persecuted becomes the persecutor. The very conditions that our forefathers fled, we have recreated some 391 years later.

It seems to me that the Gay community fell into a trap, allowing this to become a combined legal and religious issue. Severing that connection may be essential to our success in gaining full equality. Does this mean that we should not work to repeal DOMA? Absolutely not, as written into that law is clear discrimination and it is unconstitutional, but let’s separate the religious issue from the legal issue, these are two separate battles, and should never have been brought together.

Jared Mabie