crisis +1
You know, Voltaire was a nasty anti Semite, but he wasn’t stupid. So when he writes in Candide “First, tend your own garden”, I think he’s onto something.
As well, living in a free society is not a zero sum game. You don’t get everything you may hope, wish or pray for, and you shouldn’t expect such from your government. What you should hope, wish and pray for is the freedom (as an individual in golus) to do what your God tells you to do, and for everyone else, the govt, other individuals, other faiths, to leave you alone with your freedoms.
If you want those freedoms for yourself, in a free, democratic society, you have to recognize that others with other agendas and other perspectives want their own freedoms, and unless you can demonstrate in a free judiciary that such freedoms of theirs impinge upon yours or cause you physical harm or loss of property, you must accept for them what you demand for yourself.
I have no argument about how you interpret what the Torah expects your perspective to be. None at all. As I wrote earlier, I am not pro-gay marriage either, because the only meaningful understanding of marriage I hold is a halachic one, and marrying anything other than a man to a woman halachically is like marrying a parrot to a rubber band.
But that isn’t the issue. The issue is – are you prepared to live in a free society or not? Do you understand what that means? Do you get that when the supreme court makes a ruling, you have no other recourse under law to advance your perspective, other than electing someone who shares your views to the presidency, and hoping that he or she will be able to change the complexion of the court and reintroduce the matter in another way?
What it boils down to is this. Orthodox people who are pro Gay marriage I don’t understand either. But Orthodox people who reconcile themselves to the reality of living in the medina shel chesed I do understand. They don’t and cant live in a fantasy world where all their taines are answered and all their perspectives are shared.
If you want to continue to enjoy the freedom to be a halacha observing Jew in America, you will, sooner or later, need to understand that the other 330 million of you have equal access to those freedoms. HKBH put you there, not in Iran. I’m pretty sure he knew what he was doing. But if you disagree, you can go to Iran. I hear they don’t have any M’Z there, so you can be pretty sure that marriage won’t be an issue.