| I
just turned 51 years of age a few days ago and I've seen and
experienced a lot in my life as a gay man. I've felt
the shame of being gay, growing up in a society that barely
uttered the word and never was it a happy thing. I
became of age in the beginning of the "gay plague" as
AIDS took gay men in the prime of their lives and ultimately
that scourge came to my front door as my lover of over three
years left this earth before turning 30 years of age.
I am not sure how
many of you young gay men actually can understand that there was
a time in history that being gay also carried with it a feeling
and wonderment "will I live to be 40 years of
age?" So many young gay men were claimed by
AIDS that there really was a fear that the life expectancy of a
practicing homosexual was just short of four decades on this
planet.
I also remember
the anger that the gay community felt toward Fundamentalist
Christians - folks who clung so hard to their Bible that it left
imprints on their foreheads. It would shock
many here that I was once a Democrat - someone who actually
believed what the media said about the "evil
Republicans" and who voted against Reagan the first time (I
voted for John Anderson) and who voted for three Democrat
Governors in Virginia and mainly Democrat candidates in other
races.
I have
experienced gay hatred - and I will have to tell you that the
most intolerant group was not the Christians - it was the black
community. I was shocked thinking that this group
had been so mistreated in the past that they would show
compassion - wrong! I had several situations
that could have resulted in violence as black men confronted me
and were so racist and so bigoted that they were
shocking. I'll never forget the time when I
was ganged up on at work and threatened to the point that I
feared for my life. Thankfully my employer did the
right thing and transferred me out of that hell hole and I found
happier trails from then on.
So I know what
bigotry feels like. One of my closest friends in
high school ended up being a Fundamentalist Christian and I
remember hiding my feelings even as he shared his from time to
time. Another close friend in college whom I felt
was like my brother ended up never talking to me again when I
told him I was gay. So I know the pain of being
hated for being gay - for being treated unfairly. I
have lived it and need no lectures on equality and compassion.
Young folk today
have no idea that the gay community has for a long time held
society and all of its trappings in contempt. You
all think gay marriage is something wonderful, but you have to
understand that where I came from and in the time I crystallized
my sense of self and being a gay man, marriage was something
gays just didn't do - relationships were fluid - promiscuity was
the name of the game. And anything that society
called "normal" was unacceptable. And
marriage was for "squares" and for
"breeders". |
Pardon
me if I find this whole "gay marriage" thing to be
repugnant as a result. I know and talk to many two
faced gay men who are no more interested in getting married than
they are out to lick some snatch tonight. Yet now
they are supportive of gay marriage - not because they want to
get married or to have any gay married - they want to stuff the
institution into the face of society - of heteros - of the
church. They seek to defile the institution, not to
embrace it. Their advocacy of marriage is not to see
partners in the hospital or to have equality with
straights. They want to shove the focking
institution of marriage in the face of straight people and to
make straights puke at the notion of Steve and Bruce kissing and
feeding each other cake.
I personally find
"gay marriage" to be repugnant as well - but not
because I am interested in soiling the institution.
As someone who has his beliefs already cast in stone, I actually
believe marriage is between ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.
That is how it has been for centuries. Marriage
means one thing - and it was never meant to encompass anything
other than that - and to provide a stable environment where
children can be produced and raised.
Certainly there
are childless couples and unfit straight parents.
And while these people will get married, how is it that gay
people think they can simply hijack a term just because they
feel like now they want to be recognized by society when for
decades they were lambasting this very
institution? Who the fock do you think you
are?
I believe in the
concept for domestic partnerships - as equal in all legal terms
as marriage but without adopting the trappings of society's
religious tendencies. I don't understand why
gay people don't latch onto this as their own thing - without
having to steal marriage from a man and woman and to claim it as
their own.
I also wonder how
is that gay people can be such bigots as to think that only
their "redefinition" of marriage is the only
acceptable one. Instead of advocating a broad
inclusion of all coupling possible by consenting adults, gay
people impose their own bigotry by accepting only two parties in
the marriage as if this is the only way marriage can be defined.
I cannot respect
such gay bigots who are so utterly selfish that they want their
way or no way yet have not the balls to really advance society
and to tell government that if I love two other men, why can't
we three get married? Where do you gay bigots
get to define and to hijack marriage for your selfish
purposes? Who the hell do you think you
are? You lambast straight people for having
DOMA (singed by a Democrat), but you are no better with your
narrow inclusion - you just wanted to get your way and to hell
with other adults who have no less of a loving relationship even
if it might be a man and six wives or a lesbian love triangle.
Enjoy your
"win" today - but your bigotry makes me vomit. |
You do realize that the "institution of marriage" pre-dates Christianity, right? Mary & Joseph were married (or engaged to be married) at the time of Jesus' birth. Christianists did not invent the concept of marriage and just because they adopted the concept & imbued it with some sort of religious significance does not mean that everyone else needs to have the same reverence for that religious aspect. I can't imagine there are tons of people who are so anti-religion that they'd go & get gay married just out of spite.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want a gay marriage then don't get one, but let all other loving Americans enjoy equality.
You totally miss the point - there is no equality issue here - marriage is ONLY between one man and one woman. That is what marriage is. You don't get to redefine terms just to suit YOUR point of view - because if you do, you become one of the selfish and bigoted gay people I mentioned! How dare you decide to replace someone else's notion of marriage with yours? Where do you get off deciding that this is an equality issue when you, by your redefinition, become a bigot just like regular society! By your definition of marriage, you are a bigot - you exclude all other forms of consenting adult couplings and that is just as unequal as straights playing to their notion.
ReplyDeleteSo I suggest that you either find true equality, or accept you are a gay bigot with a marriage narrow vision just as absurd as the society you rebuke!
"How dare you decide to replace someone else's notion of marriage with yours?"
ReplyDeleteWhy is your notion 'correct' and my notion illegitimate? Marriage was "traditionally" about buying and selling women as property until someone decided to replace that notion of marriage with a notion that marriage involves love and consent. Why are you not the bigoted one for forcing your notion on people who just want to view marriage as the acquisition of females and property?
This shows why "tradition" does not make a good legal argument; traditions change.