Let The Conversation Begin!

In the matter of 24 hours I saw the window of possibility for the kind of open dialogue that provides space for authentic communication in this country slam closed and celebrated gladly as it was not just reopened, but kicked clean out of its frame.

Following a disturbing year of assaults on progressive social ideals, the state of North Carolina voted to approve legislation defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. And just this morning, on a national morning show, President Barack Obama said something no sitting U.S. President has ever said. President Obama told reporter Robin Roberts that he supported the right of  same-sex couples to marry. This announcement is significant for more reasons than I have time to talk about in this post, anyway, I'll get into that in just a moment.

Personally, I believe the government should completely get out of the marriage business altogether and leave that up to religious/spiritual organizations. For me, marriage is about ritual, tradition and dogma. Our government is set up specifically to have nothing to do with enforcing any religion's dogma, rituals or traditions (Save - using a bible for oaths of office and court as well as "In God We Trust", etc) and I'd say it's worked out pretty well so far. Let the government oversee the legal part of civil partnerships as it already does in business and the like, give all citizens equal rights and protection under civil unions and let the spiritual/religious institutions sort out the traditional/ritual ramifications.

Still, back to the moment at hand. In one fell swoop, President Obama just put one of the touchiest social issues in this country on the table for everyone to look at and deal with in whatever way they know how. Same-Sex Marriage. Past history tells me that this is a potentially explosive issue, but it all seems pretty cut and dry. A homosexual, is a human, not different type of species, mineral, vegetable or something out of a sci-fi flick. So is an African-American, a transexual, a diabetic, a mormon, an atheist and a communist. There is no species DNA difference between a homosexual and a baptist or a lesbian and a mormon.

These are all labels or subheadings, if you will, under the more important headings of "carbon-based life form" and "homo-sapien". In our country's constitution, every citizen has "unalienable rights" endowed by their creator and under those rights fall "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Citizens = humans, homosexuals/lesbians/transgendereds = humans, and therefore (using the transitive property) homosexuals/lesbians/transgendereds = citizens. It really is that simple.

And yet it's really not that simple because at the heart of this issue is whether or not we will continue to be a society that appreciates and makes room for different as long as we're okay with it and one that sees difference as an entry-point to a newer and bigger conversation where we give ourselves an opportunity to explore what it means to be human.

This is the next conversation. Actually, this is THE CONVERSATION. It is the same one that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and plenty of other great thinkers of this world's history have been pondering since we first began mastering words. It is this most important conversation that Obama's announcement might have just welcomed our society back into after decades with us figuring out how to get ahead, how to get over and how to keep from going under.

I don't know about you, but I think the conversation staring us in the face, is a much more fascinating one. So...let's get started!