What Is This to You?

Keith Olbermann made another of his famous Special Comments last night, this time about Prop 8. I've never seen him emotional. Angry, stubborn, pedantic, (self)righteous, yes. This time, that anger was tempered with what seemed to me to be a heartfelt bewilderment at why anyone would deny another person a chance at that most illusive dream: love.

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough. It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work. And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling.

With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?