Looking to Massachusetts for the pending gay rights decision

For those who hold much weight in the sanctity of marriage as a “sacrament” between a man and a woman, I have two words: Britney Spears. Well, actually, I have two more words: 55 hours.

If picturing the image that pops into my head when considering how seriously I think people take marriage in the United State, there she is: Britney Spears. Fifty-five hours in Las Vegas and a quick annulment later, this pop tart went back to trying to salvage her fame by kissing a girl on stage.

I bet my good friend Bruce would have gladly been married to his long-time boyfriend Andy, even for 55 hours. At least for two days and 420 minutes, they would have been able to have their relationship recognizable by law.

Perhaps that’s exactly what the U.S. government needs to do to test their tootsies in the waters of equality. Perhaps they can grant us second-class homos a “trial marriage,” as long as Spears’ was. If in that 55-hour period the said second-class homo couple does not show signs of “furthering the evil gay agenda,” they may continue as a wedded couple. (They would still be second-class though; don’t worry Republicans. You can come to the weddings and shout obscenities and all that. Feel free to grab a piece of cake on your way out.)

I am very happy that George W. Bush has diverted our attention from war (now that the “Evil Doers” have been captured) to the ever-important space mission to Mars. People are starving. Jobs are being vaporized as though shot by a ray gun (or Reagan!). Martha Stewart, queen of our homes, will soon be decorating a jail cell. But the mission to Mars, I must say, in Massachusetts-ian speak, is WICKED important.

If the American Family Association, the aforementioned president and the Massachusetts Family Institute have anything to do with the Bay State legislature’s decision concerning an amendment banning same sex marriages (Feb. 11, 2004), the gay men and lesbians of Massachusetts – of the United States entirely – may have to look for a new home to find equality. Perhaps if there are Martians hiding in some un-touched hovel on the crimson sphere near by, they will embrace our gay brethren.

I sat next to a kid in high school that shouted during a discussion about tolerance that gays and lesbians “should move to an island all by themselves, or maybe to another planet.” I think that kid is in jail now, which is funny, but can you imagine the cat fights on that island/planet? Prada-Fags fighting over the last pastel Louis Vitton, Angry Lesbos rolling dice for new hiking boots, Muscle Hunks sucking the Creatine from under each other’s fingernails, Power Dykes having a “Best Screen Saver/Wallpaper on Your IMac” contest. It would not be pretty.

All joking aside, I can remember a story about people who wanted equality, who were repressed, who traveled across the ocean to find freedom from a religion and a King who would not give them the freedom that God (or whoever) gave them at birth. They started this country and grappled for equality in our state a couple hundred years ago.

Much has changed, but the arena remains the same. The Colorado based right-wing fringe group Focus on Family said it best, “the eyes of the nation and world will be fixed on the Bay State.” Our state government is fighting over an amendment to our state constitution that will ban same sex marriages. On Jan. 7, about 200 angry people with “real family values” rallied to push such an amendment forward in the midst of the Feb. 11 constitutional convention. Three days after Christmas, Pope John Paul II urged Catholics in St. Peter’s square in the Vatican to oppose same-sex marriages. He believes that a “misunderstood sense of rights” led us to this impasse. Merry Christmas, to you too.

So what is the big deal? Conservatives seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. They balk at the idea of gay civil rights, for they believe that no group should get “special rights,” yet they would create an entire institution outside of the “sanctity” of marriage, just for “filthy” homos? Don’t we grant a special designation for gay people when we create the civil union? Aren’t “special designations” and “special programs” the alleged downfall in the eyes of the conservative nation? What exactly would happen if a legal union between one man and another man, or one woman and another woman was called “marriage?” Would the world explode? Would that sad music when Mario dies in “Super Mario Bros.” suddenly boom throughout the cities and towns of America? Would the sight of a man and another man having their wedding kiss cause hordes of children to throw back their Lincoln Logs and declare, “Mommy, Daddy, Me fink I’m a wittle homo?” I doubt it.

Conservatives talk about gay men and their “perpetual adolescence,” wherein gay men go out every single night to bars, sleep around constantly and consume a barrage of drugs and alcohol. Much of this “perpetual adolescence” holds true for some gay men. Why do they act that way? What separates them from heterosexual men? Mainstream approval and validation.

Straight people are not told that they will be damned to hell for their heterosexual lifestyle. If you were being damned to an afterlife of suffering, wouldn’t you want to make your life worth it? If you’re going to hell, where the murderers and bad people are for just living and breathing, what is a little sleeping around or snorting coke going to hurt? If everyone was saying you were an irresponsible, drugging whore, how hard would you work to prove them wrong and would they even acknowledge it? These are the messages repeatedly sent to gays and lesbians by the continual dispossession of our right to have our relationships validated in the eyes of the law.

People of the church who are against gay marriage say it was set down in the Bible that marriage is sacred, between a man and a woman only. According to those same people, we gays and lesbians have already been damned to hell. Most gays I have talked to concerning marriage designate that “this isn’t about God, this is about the law.”

I am inclined to agree. Yes, the ceremonies of people getting married are often held in churches, but how many of those brides and grooms are “darkening the door” of the church weekly? We’re not looking for a church’s approval or for a nod from a deity; we are looking for acceptance by our government that our relationships are valid and important in society.

The bottom line is that this issue of marriage is representative of a larger victory that needs to occur for gay people. If the U.S. government accepts our relationships, there is no question, no debate: We exist.

We are the same as everyone else. We are “not separate but equal.” We are not a group of confused people or biological errors. We are just human beings who love other human beings, and what is unbeautiful about such a prospect?

Thomas Naughton is a Collegian columnist.