• Blue Notes

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Gay marriage in California

posted by Rick Blue at 15h21

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While I was visiting California, recently, I met a friend at the Paradise Cove Café in Malibu. He let out a big sigh.

"What's wrong?" I inquired.

"It’s Proposition 8, the one banning gay marriage."

"Oh yeah, you’re having a referendum. But what’s the big deal? So gay people want to get married, too? It's been legal up in Canada for years."

"But why would they want to do that? That would soon take the 'gay' out of that lifestyle!"

"What do you mean?

"Isn't it obvious? You're married, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then do you have to ask? They would become like us. Isn't the whole point of being gay to be free and available? Not tied down? To have a disposable income? To be able to spend money on good times? To go on holidays and to spend every night at the disco if you want? Isn't that why it's called gay? Wouldn't gay marriage be a contradiction in terms?"

"You're thinking of the original meaning of gay," I said. "When it used to mean happy."

"I thought that was why they took it. Because they wanted people to know that they are happy about being gay. But marriage would soon put an end to that!"

"Marriage doesn't have to be unhappy," I chided.

He spit out a mouthful of beer sending it spraying across the bar.

"Do you think I would be allowed to sit and drink out here under the sun, casually discussing the problems of the day at my liesure if I was still married?" he asked rhetorically. "I'd be running an errand. I'd be picking up a kid. I'd be mowing a lawn. I'd be cleaning out a garage."

"Sounds like you didn't have a good experience with marriage, did you?" I observed.

"If I had known then what I know now," he said, shaking his head, "I could have saved myself a lot of time."

"How?"

"I could have just found someone I hated and bought her a house!"

"That's rather negative," I protested. "Marriage can be good."

"Yeah. If it wasn't for marriage, we'd go through life thinking we had no faults," he said.

"It is a humbling experience." I agreed. "Maybe that is its purpose."

"Have you ever seen gay guys? They are in good shape, well dressed, well groomed, constantly checking themselves out in a mirror."

"So?"

"Imagine if they were married with kids. Within a year, they'd be walking around in old T-shirts and torn track pants with spit-up on their shoulders and pooh-pooh on their sleeves, dazed and confused. It's humbling all right"

"Well, what about the lesbians? Maybe marriage would suit them more."

"That's what I really don't understand. Remember all those early feminist books of the '60s by Germaine Greer and Gloria Stienem? They called marriage a trap. They called it slavery. Now, they want to get married?"

"To each other. Maybe they think with a person of the same sex it will be different."

"It will be the same. Marriage is about people. People owning people. And people owning what other people own. It doesn't matter what sex they are. Why would anyone freely choose to give away the most precious thing they have - their freedom?"

"That is a legitimate question," I agreed. "But if they really want to, why not let them?"

"I suppose so," he said. "But someone has to seriously warn them first!"