I have rarely been political in this blog, by intention because it's supposed to be a business blog. However, since a part of my business is dealing with diversity issues, I'm about to take a political stance on something.

Before I do, I feel the need to say this. Over the course of the years I've had this blog, I've never deleted a comment that anyone has left on it. I did delete a post, though, because I felt that, at a certain point, the comments being left on that point missed the point of both the topic of the post, and the point of this blog.

The topic I'm about to write on is controversial, and I'm sure some people won't be happy, whereas others might. That's not the point; I don't ever expect everyone to agree with me every step of the way. But I will expect a certain level of decorum. If I believe that decorum is lacking, I will delete the post. I will tolerate frank discussion on this topic, but I won't allow bad language or any personal attacks to occur on this post. The discussion will be adult and considerate, or it will be gone.

As most of the world knows by now, California passed Proposition 8 back on November 4th, which made gay marriage illegal in the state. Now there is a movement among some people to nullify all the marriages that already occurred. This is being promoted by two groups, ProtectMarriage.com (no, I didn't give it a link) and the Proposition 8 Legal Defense Fund. These are the folks who worked hard to get the original draft pushed through.

At the same time, there is a movement being led by California Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown (once known as 'Governor Moonbeam'; gotta love it) called on the court to reject the initiative. He wrote: "Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification."

Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of the anti-Proposition 81 Courage Campaign, said he was appalled that the initiative's supporters wanted to nullify the same-sex marriages that are already on the books. "The motivation behind this mean-spirited and heart-breaking action should not be allowed to be buried in legal brief. If Proposition 81's sponsors plan to destroy lives, they should at least have the courage to admit it publicly."

I tend to agree with Mr. Jacobs, and with Governor Brown, but I want to take it further. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with gay people deciding that they want to get married. Being a black male in America, while knowing that, unfortunately, many black people in America are against gay marriage, I feel that I'm old enough to remember when certain states had rules against blacks living in certain places, eating in certain places, and marrying certain people. The people who are against it now are using the same types of arguments for being against gay marriage that they used to keep black people "in their place" all those years ago. Goodness, it's not even "all" those years ago; just over 40 years ago, to be more exact.

Cornel West once wrote something in the book Race Matters along the lines of "There will always be racism until white America learns how to deal with black sexuality." I'd like to expand that one and say that America, and the rest of the world for that matter, will never get past homophobia until it learns how to deal with sexuality in general.

Personally, the thing that pops into my mind when being confronted with the gay issue is NOT worrying about two people of the same gender having sex. Truthfully, I don't have much thought about it at all, other than 'okay, you're gay, so what.' Sure, as a much younger man I would indulge in using some of the same negative terms as other people did, but I'd never thought about it at that time, and once I did start thinking about it, I stopped using those negative epithets. Yet, when you read some of the things the folks who are against gay marriages are saying, you realize that they don't view gay people as people at all, but as deviant sex partisans, something they just can't get their minds around.

This is the type of topic that stirs the emotions greatly, on both sides, and it's a topic which has led me, and many others, to believe that President-elect Barack Obama has made his first misstep in selecting Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation on January 20th. This is a man who's done some very good things, but has also said some pretty bad things, and it's a distraction that's not needed. After all, this is the guy who said, during an interview with belief.net, that "gay marriage would be on a par with marriage for incest, pedophilia and polygamy." Not really the bastion of tolerance and acceptance, if you ask me.

Enough of that. My stance on all of this is that gay marriage should be a non-issue, like interracial marriage is, finally. If marriage isn't for everyone in this country, then it shouldn't be for anyone. It's not like marriage has been treated as being all that sacred anyway; has anyone been paying attention to the divorce rate? How many times did Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor get married? How many evangelists and pastors have we heard about over the past 20 years who have been caught in some kind of sexual indiscretion?

Deciding to single out gays when it comes to marriage is inherently wrong, inherently anti-American, and an impedance in the diversity goals of this country and the world. Americans keep looking for someone to show hate against; isn't it time someone decides to heed the words of, dare I say, Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along"?

That's that; back off the soapbox. Now on to other things once more.