Despite all the hullabaloo, despite state constitutional amendments in Virginia and Louisiana with more to follow (potentially) in 11 other states, despite the moral outrage about the sanctity of marriage as a (by definition) heterosexual institution, despite protests and wedge issues, despite all of that…gays have played and continue to play fundamental functions in marriage. Straight marriage.
Gay people coordinate the most fabulous weddings and receptions. Gay people design the trendiest wedding cakes and bridal gowns. Gay folks do floral arrangements. In Cherokee traditions, gays serve as marriage counselors based on the logic that their queer identity gifts them with the perspective of both partners in a marriage. There are also more gays helping with weddings than these stereotypes suggest. Gays sit in the audience and throw rice with the rest of the relatives. Gays help fill out the mortgage papers for the family’s new house. Gays rubberstamp the marriage license. Gays hold each other’s hands, pass tissues during the vows, and imagine a similar day when their friends and families might do the same for their relationship.
Yep. Long before gay folks thought maybe their relationships could be recognized as meaningful in the eyes of the State, they were busy finding ways to make their straight friends and clients have the best weddings possible. Good sports, those gays. So troubling when they get uppity and start asking for something more than a servile position. Why can’t they just be happy to be second class citizens? You know, separate but…oh who really cares about “equal,” anyway?
In our country’s history, we’ve treated homosexuality as a sin, as a crime, and as a disease. All three of these have fallen by the wayside, at least officially. Given our country’s stance on religious freedom, it is hard to unanimously pin “sin” to homosexuality. The APA stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disease in the early 70s. And the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws (the last legal sanction against homosexuality) in the last decade. In that case, the lawyers supporting the anti-sodomy laws warned (threatened?) the Court that if they did not uphold Texas’ sodomy laws, then they were paving the road toward gay marriage. And, despite all the scare tactics and hysteria, they were right.
The conundrum we find ourselves in is this: up until homosexuality was decriminalized there was no need to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It was, by default, heterosexual because homosexuality was illegal. But once homosexuality is decriminalized, there is no legal way to “defend marriage” as only straight unless you more explicitly make marriage between a man and a woman. And some states have done just that. And some states have gone further (Virginia and Louisiana, for example), making supposedly separate but equal domestic partnerships illegal and placing limits on the kinds of next-of-kin contracts and policies available to, well, everyone.
What we have, then, is no less than a re-criminalization of homosexuality. Make no mistake; that’s what this is! Marriage needs more defense from reality TV shows and speedy internet divorces than it does from gays and lesbians getting married. The amendments pushed through state referendums and promised on a federal level by the GOP platform will do nothing to protect marriage. But they will, once again, criminalize homosexuality – albeit in a more insidious way. I realize that national polls indicate that the majority of Americans are not in favor of gay marriage. But I wonder if over half of the country is in favor of criminalizing same sex relationships?
One mistake we make is thinking that this debate is about religious practice. See, as a gay man, I can get married right now. There are plenty of churches in the area (certainly nothing like all of them, but I still have options) who will play host to such a marriage. There are spiritual leaders (many of a Christian persuasion) who will gladly conduct the service. Yeah, I know, there are plenty of folks who don’t think that counts. But hey, I think seeking absolution through a cookie and a thimble of wine is kinda strange. To each their own, I guess. My point is that thanks to the religious freedoms protected by the Constitution, I can have my gay marriage in a church and with a community of friends and fellow believers. If you don’t want me to get married in your church, that’s fine by me.
Some say marriage is about procreation. Their reasoning goes that since people of the same sex cannot procreate naturally, marriage is not for them. But these same folks mobilize no argument against infertile or elderly straight couples getting married. These same folks don’t propose a marriage review a few years after the ceremony to see if the happy couple is producing babies yet. Why is that? BECAUSE THIS A STUPID AND OPPORTUNISTIC ARGUMENT. This is not what the debate is about.
Nope. Gay marriage is about what marriage has always been about. Property. Family relations. Matters of legal contract. Insurance and healthcare. All those things that, despite a variety of religious beliefs and practices, the state acknowledges and protects in a more or less regular way. It’s about honoring commitment and extending the same material benefits to same sex couples who seek to share their lives together. To borrow a line from our current President, “…it’s about helping American’s live their lives, not about telling them how to live their lives.” If only he’d been talking about gay marriage when he said this; if only he could see the hypocrisy of this economic policy in the shadow of his stance on gay marriage.
More fundamentally, what gay marriage is really about is visibility. See, even the most homophobic straight people accept homosexuals. They’ll let them cut their hair or prune their shrubs. They’ll let them produce TV shows or take family photographs. They’ll buy their paintings or read their novels. They’ll encourage their architectural or weapons designs, their code-breaking skills. They’ll welcome them onto the assembly line or let them freshen up the produce. They’ll even tolerate a little swishiness; that’s always good for a little gossip. But what they won’t tolerate is open visibility. What they won’t tolerate is any indication that the culture accepts homosexuality as one among many viable ways of being in the world.
So I ask you, Straight America: When called upon to vote on this issue, how will you vote? Will you support the rights of caring, moral people to have their relationships acknowledged by the State even when those are a kind of relationship you would never enter into yourself (much like how I, as a gay man, support your right to marry)? Or will you deny these people who touch your lives everyday the right to equal acknowledgement and visibility under the law just so you can maintain some ultimately hypocritical sense of moral superiority? Because if your are going to vote for the latter, you might as well propose concentration camps and mandatory re-education facilities for homosexuals and just be honest about it. And then think how boring your weddings will be.
