No More Mr. Nice Gay

WARNING...this is a serious rant...with "adult" language. You might want to skip it and read something nicer if such things are likely to offend you. Perhaps this link would be more appropriate.

So did you hear about the election yesterday in Maine? The Maine legislature had passed a law giving gay couples full marriage rights...well, marriage state rights. The anti-gay marriage people made a big ol' stink, got something on the ballot, and by a small majority vote, the right of same-sex couples to legal recognition (and benefits) for their unions was revoked.

I'm so fucking tired of being nice. I'm so tired of fighting you "defenders of traditional marriage" for basic human rights. If marriage is a civil institution, the government has no business denying it to any two consenting adults. If it's a religious one, the laws have no business respecting one religion over another. Yet while we try to be respectful of your religious liberty, you use your religious freedom to deny our relationships civil equality. Frankly, I don't give a shit whether your church wants to marry the homos or not. Preach bigotry from your pulpit...that's a reflection on you, not on me. But when your religious beliefs trump not only my religious beliefs, but also basic human decency (and decades of scientific social research), it sounds a bit to me like this isn't the democratic republic I thought we lived in...it's a theocracy, governed by your own narrow-minded dogma.

And the thing is, we don't want to overthrow your churches. We don't CARE about your churches. All we want is basic fairness. But you opponents of same-sex marriage aren't concerned with fairness or decency. All you can wrap their filthy little closed minds around is the idea of two men goin' at it. Never mind basic human rights, it's all about bum sex. And someone else's bum sex at that! Why should ANYONE care what happens in the bedroom of two consenting adults. Frankly I don't want to know what my siblings or parents (or any other straight couples) do in the privacy of their own boudoirs!

Okay, brace yourselves, it's "math" time. A disclaimer: these are VERY rough figures, based on cursory examinations of recent numbers on the US Census Bureau's website...I'm not a statistician and I'm sure there are HUGE mathematical errors, but I think the basic principles are sound-ish, and most importantly it illustrates the disproportionate hysteria over a relatively small matter. I'll indent the "math" stuff so you can skip it if necessary.

According to national estimates, in 2008 there were 304 million people living in the US. Approximately 60.1 million of them are married and living together. A little over 20% of the US population is under 15, and while I'm reluctant to include 16 year olds in the "marriage eligible" category, for the sake of argument let's include them. So there are 243.2 million people in this country who are marriage age. According to Kinsey's study in the 50's, about 10% of the population is gay-ish. More realistic estimates put that somewhere between 2% and 5%. So let's say it's 5%...which means there are about 12.1 million homos in the country. Now, given the above stats, about 1/4 of "marriage eligible" people (15 and over...yikes) are married and living together. So...assuming gays are as likely to marry as straights, which is a big assumption, about 3 million gays are actually affected by the illegality of gay marriage...or 1.5 million marriages. And if 3% of the population is gay, the numbers drop to 7.3 million homos, 1.8 million of whom will probably get married, resulting in about 900,000 marriages. Total. That's NOTHING! Definitely not much to warrant the public outrage.

Now...the divorce rate in the US is currently about 3.5 divorces per 1000 people...which works out to about 1.25 million divorces every year (of the slightly more than 60 million "functioning" marriages)...about 1/4 million fewer than gays who otherwise would marry, were marriage available. So the point is this: More "straight" marriages fail EVERY YEAR than gay marriages that would potentially exist. Let me repeat that another way: If gay marriage was legal, fewer than a million same sex marriages would happen. Period. Yet every year, all by themselves, 2.5 million straight people fuck up their own "traditional" marriages.

Who is the real threat to marriage? The six tenths of one percent of the population who actually WANTS to get married or the 50% of heterosexuals whose "traditional" marriages will end in divorce? Of all the straight marriages currently in the US, 2% will end this year alone.

But no, gays are the number one threat to marriage and freedom in this country. Asshole.

Ugh. Fine. If you want to be that way, I say let's REALLY do some damage to the "institution of traditional marriage." Let's get every gay person out there to marry someone of the opposite sex. And then flaunt it. "Oh yeah, we're married, but since marriage is such a farce we don't have sex with each other...instead we fuck around on the side...and while committed same-sex relationships aren't legal, THIS totally is." See what that does to the institution of marriage! I think it's time we give the conservatives what they've been asking for. Up to this point, our goal has been simply to have the same civil rights that every straight American enjoys. Yet they've framed as a war on marriage. Well I think it's time we do declare war on marriage. Obviously it's an antiquated, bigoted institution. So let's get government out of it altogether. Leave it to the churches. Revoke the tax benefits for married couples, for families. Drop inheritance rights completely. When your spouse dies, we're gonna tax the shit out of your house...hope you have savings...and by the way, if it's a joint savings, we're coming for that too. Deny hospital visitation to anyone who can't prove they are a blood relative. Fuck marriage...the institution reeks of your bigotry and hypocrisy. Just like I wouldn't join your church, I don't want your institution. And I don't want my country pandering to your bigotry either. Suck on that.

I really think the gays should stop respecting the rights of the people who won't respect theirs. Maybe it's time to stop begging for rights we won't get till the old bigots die off and start stripping the straights of their rights. And while we're at it, let's revoke the tax exempt status of churches.

Except we're better than that. We believe that fundamental human rights belong to everybody, regardless of religious ideology. And then when our values are attacked, when our rights are denied...we tend to turn the other cheek. Ironic, isn't it, that the so-called Christian right is receiving a fundamental lesson in Christianity from the homos.

Sorry for the rant.