COLUMN: Political maneuvering affects real people
Both sides of the gay marriage issue can – and will – debate away until oxygen is a long-forgotten foreign concept for their lungs and their cheeks are overrun with a nice shade of sapphire. Let's talk about a different part of it for a moment.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal's indefinite stay on U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman's disposal of the gay marriage ban in Michigan was nothing more than a blatant exercise of political power. Attorney General Bill Schuette's emergency stay request filed so soon after Friedman's decision smells of dirty political maneuvering.
To be fair, it's natural for someone who doesn't approve of a decision to do something about it. Yet, trying to stop people from getting married around 24 hours after the inexplicable ban was lifted? It's as if some political figures aren't even pretending not to fit their stereotypical perceptions.
The argument could be made that marriage is often something associated with religion, and that a civil union would also be effective. But let's be honest: if the world of marketing has taught us anything, it's that brand names are everything.
Marriage is an ideal that many are taught from any early age to strive for – not to be "in a civil union." The idea that certain couples are recognized in a different way by the government just doesn't sit right with me.
It might be semantics, but if somebody wants to experience the perceived mystique of marriage in a healthy consensual relationship where both parties are over 18 – I don't see how I could reasonably tell them they can't.
The fact that our political structure allows for the previous ban to be struck down, then reinstated until an appeals court decides whether or not to remove the ban later – all within a little less than a week – is absolutely absurd. It boils down to using the system to take away human rights.
