Post #8: "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga (2011) AND "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry (2008)

     I really wanted to include both of these videos to compare and contrast the ways these two artists addressed the Gay Rights issue.  While neither of them explicitly tackles the role of legislation and government, both attempt to portray homosexual relationships as something natural and, really, nothing to worry about.  Katy Perry's approach is to downplay homosexual acts as something that happens all the time, to everyone, and as more of a personal rebellion against the social conventions of society.  Lady Gaga is more direct than Perry, not downplaying homosexuality but instead proudly proclaiming that her audience should not only accept it, but embrace it; that humans were meant to be this way--no rules when it comes to your body, anything goes!
     I have more to say about Lady Gaga's than Katy Perry's video, so I will focus mostly on that.  The most disturbing thing to me about this song is her distortion of the concept of God and how He feels about homosexuality (she brought it up, not me!):
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M
I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way
No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life
I'm on the right track baby
    I'm sorry, but I am not entirely sure I know what god she is talking about; perhaps she has made up her own diety of indiscriminate love.  I know that any monotheistic God-figure (the capital H-I-M) that I know of certainly has a problem with homosexual acts.
In Christianity and Judaism:
“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable."
Leviticus 20:13
"Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error."
Romans 1:26-27
In Islam:
"Do ye approach an abomination which no one in all the world ever anticipated you in? Verily, ye approach men with lust rather than women- nay, ye are a people who exceed [transgressing beyond bounds]."
Qur'an 7:80-81
"What! Of all creatures do ye come unto the males, and leave the wives your Lord created for you? Nay, but ye are forward folk."
Qur'an 26:165
I really don't know what God (HIM is most certainly a Biblical reference) would condone homosexual acts, as she portays in the context of her song.  However, I would like to share my views according to what I believe: 
     Homosexuality (as in feelings, emotions, and tendencies) is not a sin in God's eyes (from this point on, I will be referring to the Judeo-Christian God); it is a temptaion.  A homosexual person is loved by God just as much as any other person.  However, indulging in homosexual acts is clearly a sin in the eyes of God and is thus immoral.  But those are just my thoughts; what about the government's role in all of this?  I believe that a homosexual person no matter their conduct should be granted all of the same rights as any other American citizen: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, even freedom of sexual conduct--however, I do not believe that it is the government's place to redefine marriage to accomodate increasingly bizzare sexual practices, just so those participants can feel legally justified in some way.  "Who cares if God says it's wrong; the United States government says it's alright, and so it must be." What do you think?
     Lastly, it really irked me that she actually dared to use the DNA argument ("Same DNA, but Born This Way").  Boy, do I have alot to say on that!! First of all, the majority of have either an X or a Y chromosome, or some multiple of one or the other.  Whatever you do surgically to your body, whomever you have sexual desires for, whatever you do with your body, your DNA content is going to be the same.  If you are an XX, you were born [this way] female.  If you are XY you were born [this way] male.  If you have an odd combination, such as Turner's Syndrome or are a Klinefelter's male, I am very sorry that it is your lot in life to deal with those confusing complications, but that still does not mean that anything goes sexually, not by a longshot.  But again, those are just my opinions.  Politically, my viewpoint is that it is not government's place to redefine marriage. Period.
Sources:
http://www.twopaths.com/faq_homosexuality.htm
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=212197