The Picture is Clear—It’s Time to Speak
Every experience, every story, every image painted on the mind through various modes of communication is aggregated into a whole that is perception. My perception of the world and the forces in it has shifted with the marriage debate the last few months. Suddenly individual stories come together to form a movement, a purpose.
While some may be painting the roses red, masking support for either one side of the marriage debate or the other, a surprising number have come out and clearly chosen sides. Politicians, businesses, friends, individuals have spoken and been counted.
The great debate over same sex marriage has created a great clarity in the culture wars. Proposition 8 acted as a sifter, or catalyst for decision, that brought this clear division between viewpoints and forced many to take a stand either on one side or the other. With that clarity we see the sharpening edges of this truth, and with it comes a great awakening in the realization that the opposition to traditional values has more strength than many had ever supposed.
We see the world as through a glass darkly, imperfectly. There are movements and efforts day to day that we only catch fleeting glimpses of, and in our uncertainty we may be tempted to say, it is nothing. Those scurryings in the shadow have become clearer in California, but California is only a small part of the national and global moral struggle, the current battlefront being no less than marriage and family. As this debate moves from one shore to the other and beyond, those moments of clarity will continue, forming a more precise idea of the world and the forces moving it…and seeing clearly, we are asked to choose.
Clarity…what does that give us? The ability to act. What then should we do? What action can be taken to counteract this great force whose influence we see glimpses of all around us?
What we have seen here in the last month or two has been a gift. It’s forced people to choose, to take sides, sometimes openly. On the side of the gay rights advocates are businesses like Google, McDonald’s, and Apple. There are leaders, politicians and many more. For those of us who have chosen to stand on the side of traditional marriage and values, the numbers are greater, but the voices willing to speak out are fewer, and as we have seen, for good reason.
We’ve seen what the gay rights advocates have done with their voices. They speak with violence, with derision, with the heavy arm of popular and legal coercion. The casualties mount, names that are becoming household familarities as this discussion continues from the ballot box of California, Arizona and Florida to the kitchen tables of our great nation. eHarmony, Leatherby’s, Marjorie Christoffersen, Scott Eckern….the list is long, and will continue to grow.
The picture is growing clearer and those who stand on the side of traditional marriage give a gift we ought to prize with support. The time of blissful ignorance is over. It is necessary to raise our voices and be heard, to band together for strength and unity to withstand the bully tactics of the opposition.
We cannot afford to be bullied into silence. It’s time to band together with common goals in support of leaders, businesses and individuals. Let the voice of our actions, votes and dollars follow values for informed consumerism. There are many who have stuck their necks out in support of marriage and who risk suffering for it. Beyond just a one time action, speaking with this powerful voice has got to become a way of life to be heard.
Each voice silent is a voice for the opposition. The battle is well underway.
Mosaic Mural Painting: “Adam” — by Lewis Lavoie (modeled after “God Creates Adam”— by Michelangelo)
