You know, when this whole gay marriage gold rush started, the predictions of peril and pestilence were coming fast and furious. Like Mark Morford, I am still waiting for the riots and deadly civil unrest- never mind the hordes of locusts.
I have been staring with great anticipation out the window of my flat here in the heart of San Francisco, sighing heavily, waiting for the riots and the plagues and the screaming monkeys and the blistering rain of inescapable hellfire. I have my camera all ready and everything.
There has been nothing. I see only some lovely trees and a stunning blue sky and my neighbor walking by with her pair of matching chow chows as a pained-looking woman struggles to parallel park her SUV. Same old, same old.
And this is San Francisco, gay-marriage HQ, Sodom-and-Gomorrahville, debauchery central. We are supposed to be careening off the nice, safe road of social acceptability right now, welcoming chaos, exploding into a fiery hellmist of our own sick godless depravity and dropping off the disgusted planet any minute now.
Where is my raging apocalypse? This is what I want to know. Where is the social meltdown? The moral depravity? I was promised an apocalypse, dammit.
Of course, I'd have to watch the Apocalypse on CNN, because, with the possible exception of Austin, Texas will allow gay marriages about the same time that George W. Bush is caught in flagrante delicto with Vicente Fox. (Not...gonna...happen....) Eeewwwww.....
So what is the point of all of this? Perhaps it's that gay marriage, in the final analysis, really changes absolutely nothing. American soldiers are still dying in Iraq, terrorists are still blowing up trains in Spain, and Haiti is still imploding. So why the predictions of the complete collapse of Western Civilization (or what passes for it these days)? Perhaps it the simple inability of some narrow-minded sorts to accept that some folks refuse to live by their rules.
What harm, really, is done by two people declaring their love for one another and their commitment to build a life together? It's not as if heterosexuals have been setting the bar terribly high when it comes to this sort of thing. Social Conservatives lapse into paroxysms of righteous indignation at the idea of gay marriage, but they were strangely silent when Britney Spears got married and then un-married within the space of 55 hours. The duration of the Liza Minelli-David Gest "lifetime commitment" can be measure in weeks, and no one says "boo"? Give me a break, y'all....
No, the reality here is that this is largely about the majority's hatred toward a group that largely just wants to be left alone to enjoy their lives as they see fit. Hatred is not a family value...or is it? To many Christians/Social Conservatives, it is perfectably acceptable to hate and oppress gays because their lifestyle is an "abomination". While I can understand the antipathy towards homosexuality, I fail to understand how someone can feel that they have the right to oppress another human being simply for being "different".
What many people fail (or refuse) to grasp is that the face of marriage in our society is changing. The "nuclear family" is not what it may have been forty, thirty, or even twenty years ago. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on your point of view. Regardless of your point of view, however, it is a reality. Marriage is no longer merely a vehicle for raising children, though that is obviously still an important task.
As for those who moan about the "abomination" that is gay marriage, I will begin to consider taking them seriously when they also begin to decry the abuses taking place in the arena of heterosexual marriage.
If you're looking for a diversion, and if you're growing tired of my rants on this subject, perhaps you'd prefer mi compadre Brian Kane.
In the meantime, I want my plague of locusts, dammit....
