Friendly Fire: Who’s Really Undermining Marriage?

By Jonathan Mills

Once on the forefront of the civil rights movement, ironicially, many black pastors now find themselves on the other side of the struggle in the movement for marriage equality. To many, this would seem perplexing, and, to a certain extent, hypocritical for obvious reasons. While heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. passionately argued that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” people like Nathaniel Thomas justify their about-face on civil rights by arguing that we are “…redefining something that is in the Bible and in our principles as one man and one woman.” (WashPo)

Coincidentally, this is the very same argument that was used to justify racial discrimination and, even earlier, slavery. In fact, plucked straight from Matthew 24:45-46, “Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.” So, there’s that…

How can this be? Why does it seem like a group of people, with the pain of oppression and discrimination still fresh on their minds, has so quickly forgotten what it feels like to be treated as a second-class citizen?

In another recent article, Family Research Council (FRC) blasted our 4,200+ strong organization and our ‘agenda’ to “…radicalize our military with more sexual distractions,” while also expressing disgust at our ‘demands’ for things as obscene as “marriage benefits for same-sex couples.” The horror!

FRC also goes on to complain about OutServe’s upcoming International Leadership Summit being hosted on an Army resort. “The resort and its waterfalls, pools, and gardens, which were meant to reward our fighting force and their families, will now be the setting for a group that’s plotting to destroy what moral traditions our military has left.”

They forgot to include the part where we will also be burning flags, training spies, and WikiLeaking all over those waterfalls, pools and gardens.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who chooses to quit taking their paranoia pills!

Yes, Churches should not be required to perform any ceremony that violates the central tenets of their Faith. But this is not the question at hand. So, FRC, breathe in, breathe out. Yes, just like that. There you go. Here’s your pill…no, don’t spit it out…just…swallow…yes, good job!

The courageous, patriotic men and women, who serve in the Armed Forces and happen to love someone of the same sex and want to devote their lives to them, should not be discriminated against by their government simply because an opposite-sex marriage is considered inherrently “better” than a same-sex one, or because a subset of the population objects to same-sex marriage because of religious reasons. This is archaic, unjust, and is certainly unbecoming as a supposed example of a “land of the free.”

Marriage is a committment. It can be religious, and it can also be secular. For instance, I can go to Judiciary Square in DC and get married by a government official. This is an entirely legal transaction and my Faith does not play a part in this. So to those, like Nathaniel Thomas, who object to same-sex marriage because “marriage” is a religious term, your argument is irrelevant. Marriage is not exclusively a religious term. So you may restrict who is married in your church, but you may not restrict who is married outside of it. And as such, don’t restrict my religious freedom by effectively legislating your faith onto me. I have my own, and I was under the impression I would be guaranteed to freely practice it in America.

I’m an American service member. I fight for your freedom to practice your religion how you please. I fight for your right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I fight to protect our Christian citizens, our Muslim citizens, and our Atheist citizens. I fight so YOU can be free to live how you see fit.

Friendly fire: a military term used to describe the “…inadvertent firing towards one’s own or otherwise friendly forces…” It’s hard enough to protect our freedoms from attacks on the other side of the ocean, please quit attacking them from within.