Ask a Gay Guy: Marriage Redux (Page 1 of 2)

Well, readers, Valentine’s Day is coming soon. Have you made your plans for an expensive dinner and gifts for your loved one? Perhaps you are sending flowers? Maybe you are one of the renegades who refuses to celebrate this occasion, choosing rather to stay in with some friends, a video rental, delivery pizza and tubs of ice cream? However you choose to spend your day, make sure you are sincere. Remember: It’s the thought that counts, right?

I saw a shirt in a store recently that read, “Love is like a rollercoaster, and sometimes it makes you throw up.” How’s that for telling someone you love him or her? The more I look around at the deals stores offer for Valentine’s Day, the more I wonder if there’s any hope for this holiday. In a time when Weight Watchers is the norm, any snack you desire, including chocolate, comes in a 100-calorie pack, and magazines still tell us “thin is in” despite the Kate Moss scandals, I wonder at the marketing behind huge boxes of chocolate and tiny candy hearts. I long for a time less complicated. All I want to do this year is decorate an old shoebox with lace and construction paper hearts and have everyone at work drop little notes for me to let me know how much they like me.

Here’s my Valentine’s Day gift to you: answers to more questions from the “Ask a Gay Guy” bin. I hope they answer some questions for you, but if they don’t, feel free to send your questions to me at tmurchis1@msn.com. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Dear Gay Guy,

Why can't I marry my partner of six years? We pay the same taxes, mow our lawn, fix up our house, recycle, donate to charity and basically help folks out while we work our jobs that are no different than anyone else's. You can never convince me that all the married heterosexual couples in America only have sex to procreate, and you can never prove that the “sanctity of marriage”  hasn't already been bastardized by straight people (married couples are now in the minority for the first time in American history, and the only folks you can blame for that, well, um... are straight people) So, again, I ask, “Why can't I marry the one I love and am perfectly willing to dedicate my life to?”

First, congratulations on a six-year relationship! I have no idea why gay marriage is not legal or, for that matter, why it remains an issue worthy of national attention. I am pretty sure most of us (lest I be too optimistic) have abandoned the idea that gay marriage threatens the sanctity of the American family. June and Ward Cleaver, be damned! I imagine that the issue lies somewhere in our thinly veiled line between Church and State. Marriage is one issue that continues to straddle that line. We often think of weddings being held in churches and of brides and grooms professing their love for one another and undying devotion before God and everyone else, forever and ever, amen. What we don’t usually think about is the marriage license that comes from the state and the privileges granted with that license.

That being said, I am for a separation of Church and State. I am willing to let the church have the ceremony, even the term “marriage,” if I can have a state-sanctioned contract that comes with the same benefits for my partnership. I know that many gay Christians have argued this point with me, but I think that is another battle entirely. One that I am not interested in fighting as I have no need to be married before God in a church. Unfortunately, even if state contracts or civil unions are passed, we are all too aware that “separate but equal” is anything but.

When did you find out you were gay?

This is probably the question that I am asked most often. The answer is not simple. I started my coming out process when I was 17. In conversations with friends, I would make random comments about good-looking guys. I waited to see if my friends picked up on the comments and to see how they reacted. They would usually just let the comment pass and sweep it under the rug. Then in college, after six weeks of trying desperately to be straight, I came out to myself and then to my roommate’s bisexual girlfriend. One friend at a time, I admitted my sexual orientation, and consistently I found joy and support. Next, I started the coming out process with my family.