One More Reason to Love Keith Olbermann: "Gay Marriage Is A Question of Love; Everyone Deserves the Same Chance at Permanence and Happiness"

You gotta love this man.

Prefer to read it? Transcript of Olbermann's special comment after the jump.

From Keith Olbermann on last night's Countdown on MSNBC:

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8.  And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble.  You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

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?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

[msnbc]

Comments

[Roy]

Keith really rocked it with that commentary! I saw the video clip and thank you for the transcript. So awesome. I feel so riled up and awake and energized by the movement that I feel going on! It really is surreal. How are things feeling over there in NY? Are you going to the protest on Wednesday at the Mormon Temple?????

[heather hanson]

I was channel surfing and caught this during the actual broadcast. By the end of his six minute plus plea I was gasping. Passion, insight, common sense - all from the most unlikely of sources, a male, uber-hetero, former sportscaster!! What must the folks at ESPN thought? His very distance from the issue, a point he stressed early on, made his remarks all the more poinant and memorable.

Mr. & Mrs. Olbermann, you raised a fine man!!

[BHcolin]

I really glad he spoke out about Prop 8. I really felt his compassion, quite beautiful. Thank you for posting this clip

just to pass along the info

this weekend (Nov.15th) there will be demonstrations across the nation to show support for the rights of gays to marry

go to Jointheimpact.com or to find out where in your area
http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/?t=anon
---------------------------------
in MPLS. Saturday, November 15 12:30pm

350 S. 5th St., downtown Minneapolis
(In front of the Hennepin County Government Center, next to the Light Rail)
Invite people on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=44139859622
---------------------------------

they are being planned across the nation
10:30am west coast/ 11:30am mountain/ 12:30pm central/ 1:30pm east coast times. Check the link for where in your city

I see this more than just a California problem. I see this more than just Prop 8 -it's about equal rights. But I really feel Nov. 15th is really important -- if we could get the GLBT community and our friends and family to rally together in every state what an impact that would make to those in the across the nation.

[scholiast]

All of this is great -- but why didn't he deliver this _before_ the vote?

Not that it would have helped. Some people just won't listen anyway. Let's hope they'll be made to listen!