Hiding Behind Marriage
No one has ever accused Dubbya of being the sharpest tack in the box. So I suppose it is fitting, if upsetting, that he has signed a proclamation endorsing "Marriage Protection Week," a media blitz organized by the religious right to halt and even reverse the advances gay and lesbian American have made in recent months.
The longer this debate goes on the more confused I become. "Marriage is a sacred institution," the proclamation states, "and its protection is essential to the continued strength of our society." Protection from what? Well, gays and lesbians getting married, obviously. What I still cannot understand is how allowing two men or two women to marry will destroy marriage and society. For one thing, there are already several religious communities, Episcopal and Unitarian to name a couple, who solemnize/bless gay couples in marriage or Holy Union or whatever terminology each community chooses to use. In other words, gays and lesbians are already getting married. Last I checked, California hasn't fallen into the sea. None of the Great Plagues of Egypt have cursed our land. Indeed America seems to be humming along just as before without even so much as a hiccup.
What lacks is the legal recognition of these unions. So some young gay couple has just gotten married and gets in a car accident on the way home from the honeymoon. One is severely injured. The other has only minor injuries. He or she who is less injured will not be allowed to visit his or her spouse in the ICU, or will be asked to leave when visiting hours are over. This protects marriage how? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing marriage is supposed to promote: mutual love, sacrifice and respect? If it were a straight couple, no one would dream of forbidding the young husband to be at the side of his wife. No one would begrudge him his tears. Nurses may eventually gently suggest that he go home and rest, but that would be all. But a young man feeling the same way about another young man is unconscionable.
The reality is this fight has nothing to do with marriage. It is all about fear. It is about older generations of Americans who grew up fearing homosexuals as perverts and deviants, as people lurking behind a bush in the park waiting to jump out and turn unsuspecting passers-by into a homosexual with a kiss like some kind of vampire. Gay relationships were only ever seen as only that which could be experienced in the back room of a bar. They were seen as living their lives in dark places filled with sex, drugs and alcohol. Historically this isn't far from wrong, since that is the only kind of relationship that was possible for most gay men.
Now, however, gay and lesbian Americans have had enough. We refuse to live our lives in the dark any longer. We want our love and our relationships acknowledged and given the respect they are due. We are tired of society telling us what we are and refuse to listen to their voices any longer. We choose instead to listen to our own inner voice telling us we want and deserve more. Society is still trying to tell us we are not allowed. They still want us living in dark places where they don't have to live with the fact that it is indeed possible, if uncommon, for a man to fall in love with a man, or a woman to love another woman. Of course they cannot come out and say "You faggots go back to the bars where you belong." Not in today's "compassionate" new world. So instead they hide behind marriage, pretending to some vaunted morality, using God as an excuse for their bigotry.
Dubbya's proclamation ends with the admonition to "continue our work to create a compassionate, welcoming society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect." Believe it or not this is probably the most offensive part of all. Do you honestly believe that telling a group of people that their love and their relationships are inferior and not worthy of government protection and benefits is treating them with dignity and respect? "You can be gay if you must, but just don't try to assume that you are in the same class as we are." In other words it's okay to be gay as long as you know your place. Interesting. Seems like I've heard that sentiment expressed somewhere before.