The state of Maine recently rejected a law that allowed same-sex marriage, joining California and Hawaii as states that have reversed their pro-gay policies.

Firstly, I cannot believe it would still be an issue even after same-sex marriage has been allowed in a state. I would have assumed that once the deed’s been done, people would realize that the world hasn’t ended yet, their children aren’t turning gay before their very eyes, society isn’t falling apart around them, and then they’d shrug their shoulders, say “well, I guess it isn’t such a big deal after all” and then go on their way. Still not interacting with members of the LGBT community (they’re still homophobic, after all), but not pursuing the issue.

But no! These people just can’t let it go. They’ve been getting their kicks from discriminating against those who are different for decades (possibly centuries); they sure as hell aren’t going to stop now. And in today’s world, when lynching is not only illegal, but actively stopped by police-who would have once-upon-a-time simply turned a blind eye to the proceedings-forbidding “all them queers” to marry is really the only way these people can lash out.

Secondly, and this is really the more important issue to me, I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal at all as far as the state’s concerned. Marriage in a church I can understand; it’s been seen as a sacred union for thousands of years, with all kinds of sentimental value and “meaning” attached to it. And there is that separation between church and state, you remember, so if the church wants to define marriage as something that can only be done between a man and a woman, that’s their business and the government really can’t do anything to stop them. If you want to change the church’s policy, then you’ve got to petition or wait for some more liberal-minded people to take over and change things from the top (unlikely, but possible: the Catholic Church did eventually admit that Copernicus and Galileo were right, after all).

But marriage from the state’s perspective is really quite different. There is no spiritual significance to it, and there’s really no benefits to it that aren’t merely psychological and carried over from one’s views on what marriage is from the church’s perspective. When you get right down to it, a state marriage is really just a financial agreement, in which two people decide to put down on public record that they are henceforth sharing all their collective property, and should one of them die, everything goes to the other person, unless a will exists that specifies otherwise. My question is: why can’t two individuals of the same sex enter into such an agreement? What does it really matter in the long run? And whose values would it be offending?

Please, someone, enlighten me as to why a glorified financial agreement that does not have to be recognized by the church (whose policies and opinions, as I’ve already stated, are not under discussion) is NOT allowed for people of the same sex!

I mean, seriously, to all those stodgy conservatives who are against it: grow up and focus on something worth your time, like poverty, or rapists.

Trey Treviño is a sophomore CTV major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].