Firecracking Independence Day

Two days after the country observed 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and less than a week before the Fourth of July President Obama spoke to an LGBT group during a cocktail reception at East Room of the White House.
According to the Associated Press, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to champion equal rights for gays and lesbians.
“I will not only be your friend, I will be your ally … a president who fights with you and for you,” Obama said.
This, in response to criticism that his administration has not followed through with his campaign promises to further the causes and alleviate the struggles of LGBT people in the country, among them, eliminating the on gays in the military.
He said he is working to pass an employee nondiscrimination bill and a hate crime bill that protects gays and lesbian, and he plans to help end the ban on entry of people living with HIV to the United States.
The president recently issued a memorandum expanding some federal benefits to same-sex partners, excluding health benefits and pension guarantees.
Although he has asked Congress to repeal the Defense on Marriage Act, which limits the recognition of life partners and their benefits at local, state and federal levels. The president made his stance early on in his campaign: He believes in a civil union contract for everyone across the board but marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine; point taken. You can’t build a city in one day or seven months. The one problem I see is that, probably because of whatever religious brainwashing he shares with most of the country, he doesn’t understand that marriage is a civil union contract.
The importance of the word marriage has less to do with the “man” and “woman” definition then the recognition and validity in a state or country. The error starts with us allowing the distribution of legal marriage documents to clergy. If they want to call their ceremonies marriage, great, call it religious marriage. But a legal marriage, a contractual document that provides every age-of-consent human being with rights, benefits and responsibilities should be handled only by governmental bodies. Finito.
Independence Day, a day when the founders of the country, thought ahead to separate church and state seems to be a mockery.
Here we are 2009, 233 years later, and we still have segregation. A group of people still are considered second class citizens and we are offered separate but equal status.
So, as the fire crackers go off, the LGBT community should formulate a plan to stop paying taxes, as they did with the Boston Tea Party, pick and choose who we allow in our establishments and who choose to serve.
Maybe then, our president and all these “conservative” lawmakers having affairs while preaching family values, would appreciate what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness truly means.