whatever one loves, is

You may have heard, gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco rejoiced Thursday over a California Supreme Court decision affirming their right to marry. Jenny recently wrote a powerful post on her take of "love the sinner hate the sin" in which she points out the impossibilities of this scenario. I have listen to the hate mongering of people who would deny the homosexual community the right to marry for some time thinking that this does nothing but confer a second class citizenship on this group of people. Homosexual and heterosexual alike, we do not choose who we love. We love who we love, and in honor of this day, I have chosen one of my favorite poems by Sappho to mark the occasion.

To any army wife, in Sardis:

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some again,
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.

This is easily proved: did
not Helen --- she who had scanned
the flower of the world's manhood ---

choose as first among men one
who laid Troy's honor in ruin?
warped to his will, forgetting

love due her own blood, her own
child, she wandered far with him.
So Anactoria, although you

being far away forget us,
the dear sound of your footstep
and light glancing in your eyes

would move me more than glitter
of Lydian horse or armored
tread of mainland infantry

- Sappho