A Muslim King of England or Female Pope?

Both the Papacy and Monarchy are outdated and have a rich history of absurdity. Vote on which one will take that next big step. 

So I was making fun of the British royal family as I normally do when I started playing devil’s advocate with myself. As a Catholic, I too am a member of an ancient institution that has a knack for alienating its own subjects/adherents.

I am a republican. Not in the sense of the American party, but in that I am an anti-royalist. The idea that a certain group of people, by accident of history and bloodline can formally and legally hold themselves in a higher authority than others is absurd. Such practices are fundamentally at odds with our modern principles of humanity. But then why do I keep receiving communion and bowing my head to priests when I know they are also part of and exclusive club that needs to open up? I suppose tradition and heritage do matter. I’ll go so far as to say that I will tolerate any person’s fondness for the Monarchy in their country – the rest of you fans are just silly.

How can the King or Queen possibly have legitimacy in a Britain that is increasingly non-white and non-Christian? What will happen if whites or Christians should ever become the minority? How can the Catholic Church even claim to be universal (that’s actually the definition of the word catholic) when more than half of its adherents are automatically second class citizens at birth? I thought it most prudent to push this to the hypothetical extreme:

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Washington Achieves Marriage Equality

Washington becomes the 7th state to recognize same-sex marriages. All eyes now turn to New Jersey, which may soon become the 8th.

On Monday, Washington Governor, Chris Gregoire, signed into law, the bill to recognize same-sex marriages, making the state the 7th in the country to achieve marriage equality. Opponents of the new law have already vowed to collect signatures to initiate a referendum that would seek to overturn it. As was the case in New York, the passing of the bill in the state assembly required the support of several Republican legislators who expressed their own personal and impassioned reasons for supporting the bill.

On the same day, the New Jersey State Senate passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriages. Republican Governor Chris Christie has already vowed to veto any such bill that comes to his desk because he feels that such an important decision should be made directly by the people via referendum. Basically, Christie is saying that he knows his party is on the wrong side of history, but that he does not want to take the blame when schmoozing with other Republicans nationally – especially if he is considering a run for national office in 2016 or beyond. Depending on how you look at it, he’s either playing it safe (for the sake of the wrong and increasingly irrelevant audience), or being a coward.

Chris Christie’s real reason for opposing marriage equality.

In 2006, the New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled that gay couples must be granted the same legal rights as heterosexual couples (minus the term, marriage). In the five years since that ruling, none of the apocalyptic scenarios popularized by marriage equality opponents have materialized. There is clearly momentum building on a broad and historic set of changes that now seem inevitable in many, if not most, parts of the country. Years from now, we will hopefully look back on this and marvel at how such an obvious matter of human dignity and civil rights remained unfulfilled for so long.

Momentum Building on Marriage Equality

Microsoft joins the chorus of support for marriage equality on the grounds of business competitiveness.

On Thursday, Microsoft and five other corporations (Northwest employers Concur, Group Health, Nike, RealNetworks and Vulcan Inc.) based in Washington sent an open letter to Governor Chris Gregoire, expressing their support of Senate Bill 6239 and House Bill 2516, both of which seek to recognize marriage between same-sex couples. Washington would be the seventh state to have full marriage equality following Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.

Microsoft’s official blog stated that “as other states recognize marriage equality, Washington’s employers are at a disadvantage if we cannot offer a similar, inclusive environment to our talented employees, our top recruits and their families…Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples”.

This is not Microsoft’s first foray into marriage equality. Late last year, Microsoft and 70 other companies (including Google, Xerox, CBS, Nike, Starbucks, Zipcar and Levi Strauss & Co.) filed an Amicus brief with the US Court of Appeals seeking to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which, since coming into effect in 1996, has defined marriage (by the federal government) as the legal union between one man and one woman.

In July 2011, New York became the sixth state to recognize same-sex marriages, but perhaps more importantly, it was the first “big” state to do so. The New York law was seen by marriage equality proponents as the first step in an eventual snowball effect of broader support nationally. Even former US Representative Bob Barr, the original sponsor of DOMA, has apologized for his involvement with the legislation and favors the proposed bill for the Respect for Marriage Act which seeks to overturn DOMA and recognize same-sex marriages at the federal level.

It will only be a matter of time before more states (another California referendum anyone?) join in, driven by both economics and ethics. If Washington steps up and recognizes what the majority of Americans already support, it will only be a matter of time before another Washington follows suit.