Gay Marriage

When I was young, I never imagined that gay marriage would one day become a serious political issue and that Presidential candidates would define their positions on this issue on live national television, without saying a single word derogatory against gays. It blows my mind. Many preconceptions have been swept away like so much refuse. I believe it does say something positive about the United States and about Western civilization in general, that we can talk about sexual orientation in a rational way that makes sense. I'm just glad that the issue is on the table, so to speak. Whether gay marriage becomes recognized by the federal government in my lifetime, progress has been made--a huge amount of progress at that. This is of benefit to everyone. Some people believe only gays benefit. Everyone benefits, because the more happiness, the better. Humans are interconnected like nodes on a network or bricks in a wall. Every individual exerts a certain amount of influence upon the entire community. If some become content, then more are likely to become so in the future. Gays are members of straight families. They are your co-workers, neighbors, teachers, police, soldiers, et cetera. When some benefit, all benefit.

There was an article in the Associated Press about a disappointed bed and breakfast owner in Vermont who had expected crowds of gay couples to visit Vermount to get married. He has only booked one couple, so far.

The news takes time to digest, first of all. Many gays grew up in a world where it was a foregone assumption that marriage was not in the cards. It will take time to adjust to the idea of gay marriage, not just for straight people, but gay as well, although younger people will have a much easier time adjusting. Marriage is not the sort of thing anyone wants to rush into, least of all because of a change in law. It carries responsibilities and risks. If the federal government extends recognition of gay marriage, which brings Social Security and many other important benefits, then that will help a great deal. Then you might very well see an increase in gay marriages.

By necessity, in the past, gay couples learned to develop their own valuation for their relationships, independent of society's. One of the first lessons I had to learn as a young man was to stop being so concerned with what the rest of the world thought about homosexuality. If they say you must be other than what you are, then they are wrong, and you are right. No one can be other than what they are. If we could, then I would not be human at all, but an elf versed in necromancy and divination, and I would reveal both the hidden past and the future of the world on my blog to those who cared to read me.

When I grew up, gay relationships existed outside of the law and to a large extent even outside of society itself. We lived in an underground community, although there were bridges to the wider community. It was not possible to obtain approval or recognition of our relationships by the wider community, only within the subculture. We learned to conceal relationships, rather than be open about them with others. For instance, when in public, no hand-holding, no hugging. That was reserved for private. Secrecy and discretion were important. Marriage blows the lid off of this construction. To say the least, it takes getting used to. But I think it is good for everyone. Openness is better than secrecy. It is better to live in a world where people can be who they are, rather than putting forth an artificial image, as happened often in the past. Where subterfuge in necessary, both the deceiver and the deceived suffer, but the deceiver most of all, because subterfuge wastes precious energy and time and incurs certain risks.

I observe that homosexuality is on its way to normalization and is even becoming mundane, and I'm glad. It was never all that difficult to understand in my view. If you begin with the observation that life itself is irrational, then everything else follows. Sex is an irrational act by an irrational being. Why should we want to do it? An even more interesting question is, why are we here? I don't think anyone knows all the answers, least of all those who assert with absolute certainty that they do.

Today, most of my friends are straight, not gay, which seems contrary to what one might expect. I prefer straight couples for friends, though, because there's no element of jealousy. I suspect that they like my partner and me for similar reasons. For straight couples, a gay couple is a safe bet. The wife is not going to wind up in bed with one of the guys, and the husband would have to be gay to do so. There's never a problem.

When socializing with other gay couples, there is a risk that, over the years, some one among the four might succumb in a moment of weakness to temptation, and say or do something that crosses the line. This is more dangerous due to the lack of marriage bonds for gay couples, which renders our relationships dissoluble in an instant. Single gay men in particular are not my favorite choice of a friend, and I say that based upon experience, even though we are likely to have much in common. In general, I prefer to invite a liberal straight couple over for dinner.

Because of my socialization with straight people, I realize that most people, today, have no problem with homosexuality. The subject almost never arises. In their view, there's more for them, if you see what I mean. We are not competing with them for a scarce resource, and that's the bottom line. If we were competing, it might be a different matter. Being gay is something of a novelty these days, and I perceive that as friends, we represent a trophy that denotes coolness, enlightenment. That's a flattering change from the hostile past, and fine by me, although the reality is, we are all the same at heart. We are human first, gay second. That is important to remember. Most traits about a person are universal. What you find in one person, you will find in many.