No love on Parliament hill…
By Anthony Antonucci
Issue date: 2/2/06 Section: Opinions
You cannot control how Cupid aims his arrows. There is no use in trying and certainly no chance you'll ever understand.
Love is the most powerful force in existence, and no self-rationalisation, political institution, or societal repression can hope to contain such feelings. It makes ordinary people commit extraordinary feats. It sustains others throughout a lifetime of hardship. It allows some to execute astonishing acts of self sacrifice. It exudes confidence, resolve, and bliss.
Everyone has a different meaning for love. It is sacrifice and compromise. It is opening up and extending oneself to another. It is joining two lives as one. It is the genuine desire to become a better person to make another happy. It is fate and it is luck. It is simple and complex. It is timeless.
But what is universally inherent in every definition is that love is uncontrollable. No one can help whom they fall in love with. The only choice is how to react. Either to chase or play coy, to shout it across town or quietly dream. Whether to impulsively commit oneself, or regretfully repress. The door is opened for us, but it is our decision as to how, if ever, we cross the threshold.
Since we cannot control love, no one should try to regulate it. Especially the government. When an individual, cognizant and conscious of the past, present, and future, with all the cultural, philosophic, familial, and emotional experience and advice in the world cannot explain, act on, or wholly trust in love, how can the omnipresent, impersonal, and abstract federal government have the audacity to attempt to control it? The government has no place in standardizing love. For starters, love is particular and the government works in large numbers and generalities. Secondly, it stands on shaky ground, as Liberals favor privacy and equal rights whereas Conservatives champion smaller government-where does love come in? And thirdly, the government isn't funny or charming: love involves mischief, awkward situations, and false assumptions-everything we see in Desperate Housewives, which is so like our lives.
Love is the most powerful force in existence, and no self-rationalisation, political institution, or societal repression can hope to contain such feelings. It makes ordinary people commit extraordinary feats. It sustains others throughout a lifetime of hardship. It allows some to execute astonishing acts of self sacrifice. It exudes confidence, resolve, and bliss.
Everyone has a different meaning for love. It is sacrifice and compromise. It is opening up and extending oneself to another. It is joining two lives as one. It is the genuine desire to become a better person to make another happy. It is fate and it is luck. It is simple and complex. It is timeless.
But what is universally inherent in every definition is that love is uncontrollable. No one can help whom they fall in love with. The only choice is how to react. Either to chase or play coy, to shout it across town or quietly dream. Whether to impulsively commit oneself, or regretfully repress. The door is opened for us, but it is our decision as to how, if ever, we cross the threshold.
Since we cannot control love, no one should try to regulate it. Especially the government. When an individual, cognizant and conscious of the past, present, and future, with all the cultural, philosophic, familial, and emotional experience and advice in the world cannot explain, act on, or wholly trust in love, how can the omnipresent, impersonal, and abstract federal government have the audacity to attempt to control it? The government has no place in standardizing love. For starters, love is particular and the government works in large numbers and generalities. Secondly, it stands on shaky ground, as Liberals favor privacy and equal rights whereas Conservatives champion smaller government-where does love come in? And thirdly, the government isn't funny or charming: love involves mischief, awkward situations, and false assumptions-everything we see in Desperate Housewives, which is so like our lives.
