Gay Marriage: Don't be ridiculous.

Of course we should have gay marriage. Or better yet, we should separate church from state (what a concept!) and have all the licenses issued by the state be civil unions, and if you want to get “married” you have to go to your religious institution and get that from them. (Then all those people who forgo a church service and head down to the JP would be civil unions too.) A marriage already has a state component and a religious component—in order to be officially recognized, you have to have the state part (the license) but you don’t have to go to a church or mosque and get married. So since it is a dual institution, make the state part not deal with “marriage” at all and just issue licenses for civil unions.

But since we’re not going to be logical, apparently, we are stuck with this stupid debate. I find this whole question ridiculous. And while many people ask, “What’s the diff?” you rarely hear the real answer.

The real answer is two-fold.

1. “How can we teach our kids that being gay is wrong when it’s legal?”
Well, first of all, you shouldn’t be teaching them that. But because we have freedom in this country, you can if you want. If that’s what you’re going to do, then you’re going to have to deal with it the same way you deal with smoking—just because it’s legal doesn’t make it good for you. If you can do it with smoking, you can do it with gays. If you must. (You don’t hear this argument much because people don’t want to sound bigoted.)

2. “How can we accuse gays of being promiscuous if they’re allowed to get married?”
Gays, who have never been allowed to marry and, by virtue of being gay, are already set outside the “norms” for sexual behavior, appeared to favor promiscuity. While monogamous and/or committed relationships still occurred, you rarely heard about them because these folks were keeping their heads down and trying to stay under the radar. The ERR (extreme religious right) used this as an excuse to claim that gays were “deviant” and that their lifestyle was sinful. But if gays are allowed to marry, then they have a path to a wholesome family life, and the excuse that they aren’t capable of such dissolves like so much smoke. (You don’t hear this much because the villain only admits his evil traps in cartoons.)

While the first reason is the one the ERR tells itself publicly, the second, more devious, reason is much closer to the truth of the matter.

Mary Cheney recently said, “this is not a conservative issue, not a liberal issue, not a Republican issue or Democrat issue. This is a generational issue. And as…younger people come of age, what you're going to see is you're going to see resistance to same sex marriage dissipating.” The young people are fine with it, it’s the old guard that has a problem. But eventually the old guard will fade away, and this issue in 50 years will be like the issue of interracial marriage—only your grandmother will still be shocked by it, and everyone else will shake their heads sadly and say, “Well, you know, she’s old, what are you going to do?” I hope Ms. Cheney is right, though I sometimes wonder if I can make it through listening to this issue being debated for the next 50 years until we all come to our senses.

I have to stick in here the most ridiculous quote I ever heard on this issue. I wish I could find this woman and smack her some sense. She was interviewed at a rally, and she said, “If the gays can marry, then my marriage isn’t unique.” I just wanted to reach through the TV and grab her lapel and yell, “Your marriage isn’t unique anyway! There are millions of married people in this country! Idiot!” Or, on the other hand, “Your marriage is unique because all marriages are unique. It’s unique because the only people in it are you and your fool of a husband, and that makes it different than any other marriage. (Idiot.)” While I admit she got my dander up, the truth is, I feel sorry for her because she clearly doesn’t know what she thinks or why. My dander is up because I have little patience for blind followers.

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