I’m convinced one day we’re going to look back at the gay marriage debate and future generations will go: you mean, there was actually enough material for a debate? Sure, it seems simple that two consenting adults — gay or straight — who love each other and believe they’ll never run out of things to talk about should get married. But isn’t that the art of debate — one side has to take a stance that seems absolutely crazy and defend it. I’m pretty sure that’s what gets you laid at Oxford. It’s not working out so well for the G.O.P.
Walletpop’s Marc Acito, “the gay Dave Barry” and a novelist in Portland, Oregon, who’s been happily living with his partner Floyd, explains:
“…Sensing that conservatives are losing the culture war (I mean, Iowa? Really?), GOP chairman Michael Steele has been trying to reframe the marriage debate as a financial one. I’m relieved, not because I agree with Steele’s assertion that marriage equality hurts small businesses (the whole model of employer-supplied insurance got broken without any help from us), but because, since the beginning of civilization, marriage has been a financial arrangement. And I want my money.”
In a conversation, Marc explained to me the financial benefits he misses out on because he cannot marry his partner of 22 years. It drives you insane, it’s so frustrating. I know our president has so many things to deal with — an entire planet of problems — and that he needs to be delicate with so many issues, but really, just take the pen and sign gay marriage into law already. The longer we wait to allow gay marriage in every state, the heavier history’s judgment. (The word “allow” in this context is creepy, as the next paragraph explains.)
Our equality and the right to happiness is protected by the Constitution of the United States. There is no debate against gay marriage — the Constitution simply allows it. And what a great country that, hundreds of years before Apple computers, our Founding Fathers saw the value in simplicity too.
Please read Marc’s complete column here to get a break-down on the financial-deprivation he and every other would-be-married gay couple in America has to deal with, as though they’re second-class citizens.
Something is definitely wrong when two strangers on a bender in Las Vegas can get married by an Elvis impersonator and suddenly receive more than 1,100 special government rights, while my partner of 22 years and I get zip.
Hey Michael Steele, now that’s “family values.”