What the hell is wrong with straight people?
I looked at Terry and made my “am I allowed to answer this question truthfully?” face. He nodded and made his “if you must” face.
When we were done our neighbor’s eyes widened and she leaned in and grabbed my arm.
The double standard relentlessly promoted by opponents of gay marriage is that marriage is about having children. Since gays and lesbians can’t have their own biological children, opponents argue, we shouldn’t be allowed to marry. It has been almost comically easy to punch holes in this argument. Not all married straight couples can have children. My brother and his girlfriend could marry tomorrow despite his vasectomy. After my grandmother’s death my grandfather married an elderly widow. Both of my parents are currently in childless marriages.
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And it’s not exactly a secret that thousands of gay and lesbian couples have had children or plan to have children through adoption or artificial insemination. If marriage is about children, how is it that childless straight couples can marry but same-sex couples with children cannot? By promoting this double standard social conservatives have unwittingly exposed the shocking truth about straight marriage in America, never mind what us homos will or won’t or can’t do.
Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, told the Associated Press that “it serves the common good also to support same-gender couples who wish to pledge fidelity, monogamy, and lifelong commitment.” On Larry King Live, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, claimed that he was only “advancing the bond of love and monogamy.” On CNN Newsnight with Aaron Brown, conservative commentator and early gay-marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan described the gay marriage movement as “a very conservative thing. . . . We’re arguing for the same conservative values of family and responsibility and monogamy that everybody else is.” In the Washington Times, Democratic consultant Michael Goldman encouraged Democrats to defend civil unions for gays by saying they’re “about two things, which I favor–monogamy and accountability.”
