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I got a scary email.  Scary because of the amount of hate jammed into a single message.

The Conservative Republicans of Texas invited me to their ‘Rally to Defend the Texas Marriage Amendment.’  I want to go.  Not to support them, of course, but to support marriage.  True marriage, you know, the kind between people who want to be married, regardless of any of the silly rules that some people think should be put in place. 

In the email, the group uses some awesome language to try to push their hate. 

“It’s time to rally and take action to defend God’s truth about marriage! A fierce battle has begun for the soul of Texas between those who defend God’s Biblical institution of marriage and those who hate God’s standards and promote homosexual ‘mirage.’”

“The idea that homosexuals could be married is a ‘mirage.’ It is contrary to God’s moral order. It’s a counterfeit. It’s a lie. It’s evil. The homosexuals and their supporters intend to destroy the institution of marriage against the will of the people of Texas. The homosexuals want to force Texans to accept 'homosexual mirage’ as morally right.”

“I need you to join the army that is forming to take a bold stand for Texas’ sovereignty and to defend God’s truth about marriage! Rally your fellow Christians to do likewise.”

Just wow. 

(But I do kind of admire them for how well they threw in the whole ‘sovereignty of Texas’ and ‘the soul of Texas.’  Amazing language choices…but pretty damn horrible nonetheless.)

I can’t begin to tell you all the problems in those statements, but I do want to point out some of the issues with this email.  Because, let’s be honest, marriage originally had nothing to do with the church.  It was financial.  And the Bible isn’t known for its happy marriages based on love and a man and woman.  In fact, I could swear there were parts about how you should give a raped virgin to her rapist to ‘save’ her, and how you could pay off a family if you happened to rape a virgin.  All things that were peachy keen in the Bible.  Soooo…maybe we won’t go any further than that. 

But I would like to ask you to.

I would be at the rally, standing happily on the other side, arguing for marriage and equality for all, but I just got notification today, and there’s no way I can make it to Austin. 

I’m assuming that most of you are in the same position.  You can’t make it either. 

Instead, I’m hoping to set up a virtual response.

Go to this website:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Resources/FAQ.aspx

It will let you find your representatives.  Then send them e-mails, making sure that they realize that the hate-mongers on the steps of the Capitol do not speak for all of us.

 If you want to, you can also respond here, letting me know that you’ve spoken up.  We need to make sure that people spouting hate aren’t going to overwhelm those of us who are care about love.

Because diamond rings are a virgin’s best friend…

I'd give credit to whomever created this image, but for some
reason, I can't find information about who that was.

Shhhh.  Be very, very quiet.  Because I’m going to tell you a secret.  Are you ready to hear it?  Really?  You sure?

Okay.

Here goes.

I wasn’t a virgin when I got married.

Oh my god! Stop the presses!

Psychology Today cited studies that said that 70 – 90% of adolescents have sex before they’re 18, but I couldn’t read the full study without paying $20, and that sure isn’t worth it for a little blog like this one.  But I’m going to guess it’s at least somewhat legit, and argue that most people (51% or more) are not virgins when they marry.

And that should be okay.

Because sex happens.

Of course, even if a woman chooses not to have sex, she still might not have a hymen.  According to How Stuff Works, the hymen can separate during athletics or even “for no apparent reason.”  On top of that, you also have instances of rape where a woman will potentially lose her hymen without consent.

But there’s a new movement going through Twitter (so you know it must be well thought out) with two great new hashtags: #nohymennodiamond and #poppedcherrynomarry. 

Yeah. 

For real.

Apparently, men will only marry – and give diamond rings – to women who are still virgins. 

This confuses me greatly because it makes us all fall back on that double standard.  Men need to have sex to be studly and manly.  Women have to refuse to have sex to make them dainty and feminine. 

These two things cannot go together.  Unless you’re advocating that all men should be involved in homosexual relationships.  (Hey, I don’t think that’s a bad thing…but I’m going to guess that there are some men who won’t be into that idea.)  So that means that, sooner or later, for a man to have sex, a woman will be the one having sex with him.

But let’s not even go there.  Let’s look at the simple things. 

There are three assumptions in those hashtags:

A woman’s worth is in her hymen.

A woman wants to get married.

A woman wants a diamond ring.

The first of those things is just straight out wrong. You cannot make any argument that would convince me (or almost any other woman) that a hymen is a value of worth. 

The second and third are arguable.  Many women do not want to get married.  Many women do not like diamonds (or do not want a diamond engagement ring, anyway). 

It seems to me that if someone is going to put forth the idea that women should only get engagement rings if they are virgins means that the diamond industry should weigh in on that because they’re set to lose quite a bit of cash…