Part 7 (1/2)

When the United States Congress debated the so-called Marriage Protection Act back in 1996, lucky moi had the privilege of attending the House subcommittee hearings. The question was whether same-s.e.x marriages should be banned on a federal level.

Cynic that I am, I support gay marriages. This puts me in the minority, but okay. So be it. My feeling is that if any two people are actually in love (i.e., insane) enough to want to commit to spend their entire lives together-if they're actually willing to a.s.sume legal and financial responsibility for each other until death do them part-well then, I say give 'em as much rope as they need. It's a tough, lonely life, and I don't believe in begrudging anybody a shot at some happiness and comfort. Besides, why should straight folks be the only ones who get to fill out joint income-tax forms, run up shared credit-card debt, visit each other in the intensive-care wards, and inherit each other's c.r.a.ppy furniture?

Gay marriage actually benefits straight gals, too. Some leaders who oppose gay marriage also support the c.o.c.kamamie idea of ”converting” gay men to heteros.e.xuality. Well, as any hetero-femme can tell you, dating a closeted gay guy is no f.u.c.king picnic. Compelling h.o.m.os.e.xuals to live as straights is not doing us gals any favors. Unless both parties are really as.e.xual, it's frustrating and humiliating and painful for everyone involved. Why put two people through that? The more that all loving partners.h.i.+ps can flourish in an atmosphere of truth, honesty, and acceptance, the better for everyone in the long run.

My grandmother, incidently, was a supporter of gay marriage, too-specifically, lesbian weddings. She seemed to think that lesbian weddings might be a good antidote to the man shortage in the Century Village retirement community in West Palm Beach, Florida. ”So, what's wrong with a little lesbian wedding?” she once said. ”I mean, what else are we elderly widows supposed to do for entertainment, once all the men have died off? This way, we could have a lot of parties and drink gin.”

Congress, however, clearly doesn't share my grandmother's idea of progressive social policy.

At the time that the hearings on gay marriage took place, Newt Gingrich was riding high as the Speaker of the House. As you may guess, the proceedings were a baccha.n.a.lia of bombast, h.o.m.ophobia, and Bible thumping. Had the gasbags involved not had any real power-and had they perhaps had the imagination to speak in Monty Python accents (which make any bureaucratic proceeding infinitely more palatable)-they actually could have provided the taxpayers with a fine afternoon of comic entertainment. (I've become convinced that if we don't regard politics as a theater of the absurd, we're headed for a coronary.) But, instead, I listened to a legion of extremely serious politicians and ”experts,” some of whom had a truly impressive track record of divorce and adultery themselves, testify that the ”sanct.i.ty” of marriage would be destroyed if lesbians and gays were legally allowed to set up house. Apparently, heteros.e.xual marriage only works if n.o.body else is allowed to copy it. According to pros such as then-California Congressman Bob Dornan, a successful marriage does not depend upon the love and commitment between the wife and husband, but upon keeping couples named Frederica and Ginger from registering for gravy boats.

Ma.s.sachusetts Representative Barney Frank, bless his openly gay heart, captured this absurdity the best. At one point he asked the committee, ”Are straight marriages so fragile that if me and my partner get married, it will cause your own relations.h.i.+ps to fall apart?”

Strange as it was, a lot of people at the hearing actually seemed to think yes.

And this is a dirty little truth that I think deserves to be acknowledged: Policymakers seem to oppose gay marriages because they, themselves, are miserable, because their own marriages are a fragile, messy sham. Why else would they begrudge two people the right to set up an enduring partners.h.i.+p together? Why else would they fear their own choices will be denigrated and threatened? I mean, face it: When you're truly in love, you want the whole world to be in love with you. You feel giddy and romantic and generous. You fix people up. You're insufferably jolly-they could pour you over a waffle.

It's only when your own relations.h.i.+p is on the rocks, when your own s.e.xuality is contorted and troubled, that you get miserly and mean-that you try to sabotage other couples, that you feel compelled to increase your own sense of importance through sanctimony, that you adopt the hooray-for-me, f.u.c.k-everybody-else syndrome that seems endemic to some super-right-wing conservatives.

Sure, the so-called religious activists say they're enforcing the tenets of the Bible. But the Bible (which some of us silly folks read more as a treatise on justice, love, mercy, and redemption than on retribution) has far more numerous and d.a.m.ning prohibitions against adultery than against h.o.m.os.e.xuality. Heck, adultery even made the Top Ten list of all G.o.d's Commandments, while the first pa.s.sage that's usually cited against h.o.m.os.e.xuality remains buried somewhere in Leviticus.

And adultery is certainly far more threatening to marriage than Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche making kissy-kissy in Hollywood. If my husband sleeps with Mary Ann, it's far more destructive to my family than if Gilligan makes a pa.s.s at him and my husband says he isn't interested. So hel-lo? Where is the ruckus against adultery? I don't see the ”family-values” folks railing against adultery nearly so much as against h.o.m.os.e.xuality. Perhaps that's because when guys like Newt Gingrich or Henry Hyde haven't been railing about the decline of family values, they've been busy cheating on their spouses.

Also, if we're going to get really literal here, the Bible also says that anyone who curses their father or mother should be put to death. Whoops! I guess there goes the entire population of teenagers! And the Bible also says: Hit your father or mother and you get put to death. Well, say sayonara to the toddlers during their terrible twos!

Of course, people like Congressman d.i.c.k Armey have insisted that they oppose h.o.m.os.e.xual marriage because gay s.e.x is a ”disease,” ”promiscuous,” and an ”unnatrual perversion.”

But c'mon. Anybody who's married will tell you: Marriage ain't about s.e.x. In fact, nothing supposedly puts the kabash on a robust s.e.x life faster than marriage. I mean, we've all heard the old joke: Q: How do you stop a girl from having s.e.x?

A: Marry her.

So if bigots are truly opposed to gay s.e.x, shouldn't they, more than anyone else, endorse gay marriage? I mean, what better antidote to supposed gay promiscuity? Let Adam and Steve be legally required to remain monogamous as they argue about the mortgage, then see how hot and h.o.r.n.y they feel! Let Ada and Eve adopt a baby, then see if they still have the energy left to hit the girlie bars.

People also say they oppose gay marriage because: Cripes! What about the children? Children can't be allowed to see Jason with two daddies! That would send the message that gay s.e.x is okay!

Well, let's remember one absolutely critical thing about childhood, please. Kids, no matter what their age, are absolutely loath to think about their parents-gay or straight-having s.e.x.

I mean, just try thinking about it right now: Eee from,” most prefer to live with the happy illusion that their parents had s.e.x exactly the number of times it took to make them and their siblings-and no more. o.r.g.a.s.m, sodomy laws, h.o.m.os.e.xual feelings-all of this is waaaay off their radar. And this is not going to change if they have two mommies instead of one, or if ”Aunt Bill” and ”Uncle Bruce” take 'em to Disneyland every Christmas.

All kids really want to know is that they are not weirdos. If Heather Has Two Mommies is on their bookshelf , it's not going to inspire them to start imagining Mary Ann and Ginger gettin' hot 'n' heavy by the lagoon. But, if they do have two mommies, it may provide them with a little rea.s.surance that they're okay. And this is important. Remember, when you're a kid, you can feel like an outcast if you bring meatloaf for lunch when all the other kids have bologna. It doesn't take much in second grade to earn you the nickname ”Freakazoid.”

Realize this, and the argument that gay marriage will ”corrupt” children flies out the window, too.

No, the opposition to gay marriage is not really about s.e.x, ”religious morality,” or protecting children. If you ask me, frankly, I think it's about insecurity, and maybe even a little jealousy.

Because deep, deep down in their hearts, some heteros.e.xuals actually suspect that gay people have it easier. Sure, gay folks have to put up with violence, discrimination, and social ostracism, but hey: They don't have to spend the rest of their lives with members of the opposite s.e.x.

For some straight people, heteros.e.xuality is actually far more of a headache than they'll admit.

Yeah, there's l.u.s.t and instant chemistry. But throughout history, men and women have been engaged in a holy war known as the Battle of the s.e.xes. To some degree, we've been raised to view each other as the enemy. Certainly, men have been encouraged to f.u.c.k as many women as possible, while women have been encouraged to ”get” a man to marry us and settle down. Talk about conflicting agendas. And until very recently in the West, our roles were greatly codified religiously, socially, economically, and s.e.xually-and grossly unequal. In most places, they still are.

Plus, men and women often perceive each other as predatory and alien. I mean, why else would Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus become a bestseller? Why else are there humorous self-help books advising women to use dog-training techniques on their boyfriends? Just try selling something like that to lesbians. h.e.l.l, try selling The Rules to lesbians. Or take the De Beers TV commercial for a diamond engagement ring. It shows the silhouette of a man who is getting ready to place an enormous rock on his fiancee's finger-his fiancee whom the ad describes as an exquisitely ”incomprehensible creature.” Oh boy. An incomprehensible creature. Just whom I'd want to spend the rest of my life with.

And listen to straight people in bars.

The guys: ”Augh! Women! You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em! We will never understand women.”

And from the girls: ”Guys are dogs. They will never be like your girlfriends. So you've got to remember not to expect too much.”

Add to this the fact that our s.e.xual peaks are separated by eighteen years, and our s.e.xual responsiveness is vastly different, and it's a miracle that men and women have gotten together at all in the past fifteen thousand years. And yet, to this very day, we're expected to build lifelong partners.h.i.+ps together. We're told, in fact, that the very foundation of our society and the future of our species depends upon it. Oh. Great. No pressure there.

So, when I hear straight guys being h.o.m.ophobic a.s.sholes, what I really hear is envy. Beneath their words, I hear their resentment and frustration over having to relate to us chicks. It's like: Hey, we have to put up with those stupid b.i.t.c.hes, with all their nagging and irrational demands and expectations. We have to try and be macho but also keep our pants zipped and watch our mouths and worry about p.i.s.sin' them off. We can't have s.e.x with whomever we want, wherever we want-at least without paying a price for it. Why the h.e.l.l should the gay guys get off so easy? They want the benefits of being married? Let 'em marry a chick, like I did!

And when I hear straight women denigrate lesbians, the subtext I often hear is their own dissatisfaction with men: Hey, of course I'd prefer to share a household with my friend Sharon, who really understands me-rather than this King of Flatulence who watches football all day and whose idea of a romantic gesture is to change the oil in my Subaru. But we all make compromises. Why can't these women get with the program the way I did?

And listening to the right-wing wackos at the gay-marriage hearings, this is what I heard, too: fear and jealousy and romantic dissatisfaction. And so did my man Barney Frank.

Not that any of this justifies rampant heteros.e.xism, gay-bas.h.i.+ng, or discrimination, of course.

But the way I see it, when it comes to combating discrimination, any insights into the opposition can be a real power tool.

So next time some moron rails against ”lezzies and perverts” getting married, I say we just go, ”Wow. Your own love life must suck. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so threatened by anyone else's.”

This could stun them into a silence. Or make them vein-popping mad. Either way: points for our team.

I suppose we could remind them, too, that committed gay couples are actually no different from straight couples in the long run. Long-term relations.h.i.+ps all have their hopes and disappointments, neuroses and challenges. n.o.body is immune to heartache.

But nah. Let 'em suffer. Let their own fear and ignorance work against 'em. Let 'em believe deep down inside that lesbians really do have it better.

Chapter 13.

We Are the Fas.h.i.+on Police Laugh and the world laughs with you.

Cry and you cry with your girlfriends.

-LAURIE KUSLANSKY I recently attended a women's networking dinner in Virginia where a bevy of very hip, very multicultural, very accomplished professional gals sat around discussing-you guessed it-golf.