History is full of social standards that have changed over the years. There was a time when women couldn't vote, interracial marriage was unlawful, and divorce was unthinkable. The times have changed in all but the most repressive outliers of modern society.
The current generation looks back at distant issues of the past and puzzles over the lack of rights for so many that are now taken for granted. The next generation will do the same regarding the lack of human and social equality of rights afforded to LGBTQ people by some governments and religious institutions.
Although legal and socially accepted in most countries of the world, same-sex marriage is still a hot-button, usually religion-based, topic for some people. Bigotry based on religious beliefs is used by many and for many purposes.
But the ceremony of marriage between two people is not a religious act. Some couples do opt to be married in a church by clergy while others may wed at a courthouse, on the beach, and even underwater with SCUBA equipment by secular officiants. Marriage is far more a legal commitment than a religious rite.
It’s been stated by a far-right religious group and a Member of Parliament in Curaçao that biology is yet another reason for same-sex marriage discrimination. Ignorance from such people is to be expected, but in reality, there is nothing biological about two people of the same sex getting married other than they are biologically human.
These same people also claim to speak for all Curaçaoans in their opinions, but they don’t. Cosmopolitan Curaçao and its people are more open-minded to social equality issues than they have been given credit for by some with extremist views. Moreover, surveys conducted recently on the island clearly indicate that most island residents don’t have an anti-homosexual bias.
Marriage is fundamentally a pact between two people committing to a relationship, hopefully for life. Who or what they are is completely irrelevant. Without a doubt, history will show marriage discrimination in the same light as many other unjustified treatments of people that were based on intolerance, religious or otherwise.
The sun rose, the birds sang, people went to work, and children went to school. Fishermen took to the sea and shopkeepers opened their doors for business. A day like any other day except that, for the first time, two people of the same sex were legally married.
The next day, the sun rose, the birds sang, people went to work, and children went to school. Fishermen took to the sea and shopkeepers opened their doors for business ...
G. Buther
Curaçao
