It’s March 27th 2013, and the US Supreme Court is deliberating over the constitutionality of gay marriage. Some people are busy posting equal signs as their social media profile pictures, others are at protests demonstrating their support for equal rights, while others are proclaiming with evangelical zeal what they feel is God’s plan – working to protect the institution of marriage by defining it as a relationship between one man and one woman.
Yet again, Americans have been pitted against one another in a war of ideologies. CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC… they all stoke the flames of American sentiment from different directions.
I’m about to say something that might upset some of my friends who are gay, or sympathize with the gay population. Before I go any further, I need to make it clear that I am an ALLY. I wholly believe in the individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I feel the same oath in my heart that Thomas Jefferson proclaimed:
“I Have Sworn Upon the Altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
That being said, let me ask you a question…
Is it possible that the gay rights debate is really not about gay rights at all? Could it be motivated by something entirely unrelated to love, marriage, and civil rights?
In the iconic 1976 film Network, the main character, Howard Beale, is a newscaster. He has begun telling the truth of what he observes in society, rather than following the scripts given to him by the corporations that control the media. In this scene, he is pulled into the board room to have a chat with the chairman of the board, who is not happy about his new truth-telling:
“There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.”
Is it possible that the gay marriage issue is not about ideology, but rather, about money? Is it possible that insurance companies and other businesses who have a vested interest in the contracts between adults, might be the ones who really care the most about this? Is it possible that this is not about God, or bigotry… but that we’ve been fooled into thinking it is, by the big corporations and the politicians who depend on them for funding? Think of it. The implications of gay marriage are HUGE on the insurance industry, because now many more people would be eligible to be on their partner’s insurance policy. Many other big industries are directly connected to the insurance industry. Think of the financial ripple effect that gay marriage would have in the financial world. I’m not saying that any of this is right or wrong. I’m just asking you to consider this reality in an objective sense, just like you would observe a rain storm.
Is it possible that politicians on both sides of the isle are not anxious for the public to have a solid understanding of what really happens – monetarily – in the governance and economy of our country?
Is it possible that “ideology” has been used – AGAIN – to distract the American public from the insane mess that the politicians have created (or failed to fix?)
The web gets stickier: How many of you have a 401k? How many of you own mutual funds or other similar investment products? If you have any sort of retirement fund, either privately held or through your employer, Chances are, shares of some insurance company are part of your portfolio. Do you want the value of your 401k to go down? NO, of course you don’t. Sooo… you, too, have a vested interest in making sure that these huge corporations produce healthy profits.
We live in world full of deep interconnections. There is a high probability that in some areas of your life, you profit from the advancing of agendas you don’t agree with. It’s almost impossible to untangle the web. In the mean time, the best thing we can do is to live and let live.
