Sky Doesn’t Fall: #LoveWins

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Rainbows Fill The Sky After Ruling

A week ago Friday, I kissed my wife goodnight while trying to hide my worry. I didn’t sleep well. I tossed and turned. We’ve been happily married for 32 years, had a good run of it with two great kids, but now what?

1gaymarriageThe warning signs my marriage was doomed were everywhere. And yet despite the hysterical Henny Penny-like cries of “The sky is falling!” I woke up last Saturday morning to blue skies and sunshine. Birds sang outside my bedroom window.

I rolled over and my wife was still beside me after all.

“Good morning,” I whispered, tentatively. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling you should get up and let Murray outside before he pees on the carpet again,” my much-better-half replied.

“I meant how are you feeling about our ‘traditional’ marriage?” I replied.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t think it’s too healthy,” she answered, feeding my fears.

“You mean the anti-same-sex-marriage Chicken Little doomsayers are right?” I asked.

“No,” my wife said. “I mean that if our marriage is ‘traditional’ where the wife traditionally does 97 percent of the cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping and errands while also working fulltime and the husband traditionally does 97 percent of the TV watching, then yes ‘traditional’ marriage is doomed.”

“I’ll go let Murray out,” I said, making my escape.

“Thanks, honey,” my wife said. “I love you.”

Remarkably, our marriage had survived what one Chicken Little presidential candidate called “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history” following the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling that the Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry in all 50 states.

Others in the Chicken Little flock sounded a similar alarm: “Judicial usurpation! The Constitution has been run through a paper shredder! The sky has fallen and crushed traditional marriage!”

Here’s my question for the Chicken Littles: How does the SCOTUS ruling in any way whatsoever affect non-same-sex marriages? I’m sorry, but I don’t see how Jessica and Julia’s marriage, or my friends Bob and John’s marriage, diminishes Ted and Tina’s marriage.

I don’t see how a gay or lesbian couple being married – and being able to visit one another in the hospital and make legal medical decisions for one another; being able to share healthcare coverage and pension benefits; being afforded so many other rights denied unmarried couples – negatively affects husband-wife marriages.

I don’t see how a same-sex marriage that provides a sense of family permanence to children negatively affects male-female marriage.

I don’t see how granting same-sex marriage a long-denied dignity instead of treating these couples like second-class citizens suddenly diminishes the dignity of husband-wife couples.

This is not to say same-sex marriage may not affect marriages between a man and a woman – positively. To see how long and hard gays and lesbians have fought for the right to marry who they love surely may inspire some “traditional” couples to not take their own marriages for granted.

Indeed, to those who say same-sex marriage has caused the sky to fall on “traditional” marriage, I borrow the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Heykidsgetoffmylawn Scalia: That’s pure applesauce and jiggery-pokery!

Here is more applesauce: SCOTUS ruled 5-4 and not 9-0. That’s my opinion, dissent if you please, but you are on the wrong side of history and moral justice – just like those who opposed the national legalization of interracial marriage in 1967.

The reaction to same-sex marriage’s historic victory, Chicken Littles aside, was not a sky that is falling but rather one filled with rainbows. Parades and parties had rainbow flags and banners. The White House under floodlights became The Rainbow House for a night. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook postings exploded across the Internet with more color than a kindergarten class during painting time.

Today being the Fourth of July, the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence seem fitting: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Marriage is, above all, the pursuit of Happiness. #LoveWins.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”