Where is my gay appocalypse?

[jfinn]

Well it has been a month already...

Jayne


stargate.com

Where Is My Gay Apocalypse?
Over 3,500 gay marriages and, what, no hellfire? I was promised hellfire. And riots. What gives?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, March 5, 2004
©2004 SF Gate


I have been waiting patiently.

I have been staring with great anticipation out the window of my flat here in the heart of San Francisco, sighing heavily, waiting for the riots and the plagues and the screaming monkeys and the blistering rain of inescapable hellfire. I have my camera all ready and everything.

There has been nothing. I see only some lovely trees and a stunning blue sky and my neighbor walking by with her pair of matching chow chows as a pained-looking woman struggles to parallel park her SUV. Same old, same old.

And this is San Francisco, gay-marriage HQ, Sodom-and-Gomorrahville, debauchery central. We are supposed to be careening off the nice, safe road of social acceptability right now, welcoming chaos, exploding into a fiery hellmist of our own sick godless depravity and dropping off the disgusted planet any minute now.

Where is my raging apocalypse? This is what I want to know. Where is the social meltdown? The moral depravity? I was promised an apocalypse, dammit. What am I supposed to do with all these tubs of margarine and confetti and kazoos?

There have been more than 3,500 gay-marriage ceremonies in San Francisco so far. Hundreds more are just now kicking up a storm in Oregon and in beautifully rebellious little burgs around New York state. And, yet, nothing. No chaos. No rain of terror. Not even a lousy heat wave. Sigh.

Some homosexual couples have been married for more than three weeks now, living in utter godless sin as they drive their cars and shop and laugh and cry and go to work and pay their taxes and wonder about their dreams. Lightning has not struck them dead. The Hellmouth has not opened wide its gaping maw, hankering for some of the City's trademark Sourdough o' Sin. I am dumbfounded.

After all, gay marriage is supposed to ruin the nation, is it not? Induce actual rioting and civil unrest and shirtless anarchy as millions of stupefied citizens pray to a bloody pulverized Mel Gibson-y Jesus for redemption, as they suddenly begin questioning whether ogling the Pottery Barn catalog for more than 10 minutes might mean they're gay.

"It's anarchy," some guy named Rick Forcier, of the Washington state chapter of the Christian Coalition, actually whined. "We seem to have lost the rule of law. It's very frightening when every community decides what laws they will obey." Why, yes, Rick. It's total anarchy. Just look at all the screaming and the bloodshed and the gunfire. Run and hide, Rick. The gay people in love are coming. And they've got tattoos and funny haircuts and want to get married and celebrate their love and be left alone. Hide the children.

This was -- and still is -- very much the right-wing sentiment. It was almost a guarantee: Same-sex marriage spelled the instantaneous end of all that is good and righteous and edible. Insurrection was imminent, apocalypse nigh. You could see it in their eyes -- they could hardly wait.

Hell, even Governator Arnie went on "Meet the Press" recently and proclaimed, semicoherently, that he was actually worried about the riots and deadly mayhem should S.F. continue with its brazen lawlessness. And look. Nothing. Not a peep. Not a single rabid spitting demon to be seen. Unless you count Lynne Cheney. Which you never, ever should.

I believe I have been misled. I was told repeatedly in extra-glowing terminology by multiple raging Bible-quoting drones that The Good Book expressly forbids gay marriage and gay sex, and to engage in either spells imminent doom and instant social bedlam and there are specific verses all about it.

Is this true? Are there actual verses decrying gay marriage? Are they anything like those other Biblical verses, about the rules and regulations surrounding marriage that are making the rounds on the Net right now? Real verses. Actual verses. Verses o' sanctimonious fun. Have you seen them?

Like this: "Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take multiple concubines in addition to his wife or wives." (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21).

Or maybe: "A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be stoned to death." (Deut 22:13-21) Isn't that cute? Isn't quoting Bible verse fun? Ask your local pastor about that one.

Or how about: "If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law." (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10). Hey, it's right there, in the Bible. So it must be true.

Is it worth showing those verses to the happily sanctimonious and sneering Christian homophobes who are protesting outside S.F. City Hall right now, telling the gay couples what depraved hell-bound sinners they all are? Nah. Why spoil their whiny apocalyptic wet dreams? Live and let live, I always say.

(Oh, and while we're at it, God also really hates shrimp. Maybe you didn't know. Shrimp are evil, as are all shrimp eaters. Clams, too. Hey, it's in the Bible. You can look it up. Why the Right is attacking homosexuals in love and not, say, Red Lobster, remains a mystery.)

So, here we are. Approaching a full month after the first of S.F.'s marriage ceremonies, and nothing. The universe is smiling madly. The world is shrugging. Anonymous supporters from all over the nation have sent flowers to hundreds of loving gay and lesbian couples. As of this writing, there is no scathing hellfire. No fanged demons of destruction (Lynne Cheney excepted). No meltdown whatsoever. I would know, right? I mean, wouldn't the power go out, or something?

Maybe it's still to come. Maybe total screaming misery and unspeakable sociocultural collapse coupled with wanton bestiality and incest and the giving away of free anal beads to innocent teenagers takes more than a month. Maybe I'm just a little impatient.

Maybe Satan is taking his sweet time to marshal his leather-clad armies, watching as other U.S. cities get in on the gay-marriage act, listening as mayors and governors all chime in their support and say what's the big deal. Maybe Beelzebub is waiting for a big moment so as to really leverage the coming news flash, the special report, the sudden activation of the Emergency Broadcast System. Something like:

"This just in: Earthquakes rocked the globe today as giant fire-breathing bees of death swarmed the countryside, feasting on fat white heterosexual babies mostly from Texas and Colorado Springs and Utah and Idaho, as the institution of hetero marriage careened around the mad vortex of space-time like a savage drunken pinball high on black-tar heroin, just like the Christian Right predicted.

Horrors bled into the streets, terrorists were spawned by the thousand, presidents openly lied so as to lead a nation into bloody violent unwinnable wars, thousands of Catholic priests sexually molested tens of thousands of children over a 50-year period without the slightest punishment, the environment teetered on the brink due to heartless government rollbacks as air quality and water quality and food sources were ravaged in the name of corporate profiteering, the economy crumbled like Jenna Bush after her 10th beer bong as hate and fear and bogus Orange Alerts ruled the land."

Oh wait. That was all before the gay-marriage thing. My bad.

 

[CharleyH]

Well it has been a month already...

Jayne


stargate.com

Where Is My Gay Apocalypse?
Over 3,500 gay marriages and, what, no hellfire? I was promised hellfire. And riots. What gives?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, March 5, 2004
©2004 SF Gate

He's NOT in Kansas?

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Jayne. I missed this one. Yeah, some congressman or senator recently spoke of gay marriages "spreading like wildfire". No smoke in sight, but lots of happy couples.

Perdita

 

[minsue]

Thanks, Jayne. I missed this one. Yeah, some congressman or senator recently spoke of gay marriages "spreading like wildfire". No smoke in sight, but lots of happy couples.

Perdita

There are happy gay people?!? We can't have that! Look how long it took to teach people that gay doesn't mean happy anymore. We'll have to start all over again, dammit.

 

[Guest]

Cool off, Min. I was talking about the newlyweds. They'll become miserable as soon as any het couple. I do think gay divorces will be more interesting though.

Perdita

 

[jfinn]

Cool off, Min. I was talking about the newlyweds. They'll become miserable as soon as any het couple. I do think gay divorces will be more interesting though.

Perdita

And it'll give a whole new spin on the term gay divorcee.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

gay divorcee

Brilliant, haven't heard that term in ages. P.

 

[jfinn]

Brilliant, haven't heard that term in ages. P.

What can I say, I've always been crazy about Fred and Ginger movies.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

What can I say, I've always been crazy about Fred and Ginger movies.

Yep, that's when I last heard it. Is that the one that has scenes in/of Venice? P.

 

[jfinn]

Yep, that's when I last heard it. Is that the one that has scenes in/of Venice? P.

Nah, this one starts in Paris, then moves to London and eventually Brighton. It's the second of the series and is generally considered to have pretty sloppy productions values in comparison to most of the others. The exception is the twenty minute production number The Continental, which also won the Oscar that year for best song.

Top Hat has the Venice settings, but just like The Gay Divorcee it features Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore in supporting roles so it's easy to confuse them.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

Top Hat has the Venice settings, but just like The Gay Divorcee it features Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore in supporting roles so it's easy to confuse them.

Got it, thanks. Now I'm feeling like renting Top Hat tonight. Love EEH too. P.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

thousands of Catholic priests sexually molested tens of thousands of children over a 50-year period without the slightest punishment, the environment teetered on the brink due to heartless government rollbacks as air quality and water quality and food sources were ravaged in the name of corporate profiteering

Wasn't that on the news yesterday?

 

[Guest]

an Other view

Gay Marriage? How Straight - By BOB MORRIS, NY Times, March 7, 2004

Last week, my boyfriend's best friend, a lesbian, told him she was taking her girlfriend to go tie the knot in San Francisco the first week in April. She wanted him to be there, absolutely. He got all worked up about it, but not the way you might think.

"This whole gay marriage thing is so annoying," he said. "It's aping a bourgeois lifestyle that I've lived my life trying to avoid. I feel confused and betrayed."

He is not alone. Many gay men and lesbians — in fact most of the ones I know — are not jumping to jump the broom. They like their status as couples living between the lines, free of all the societal expectations that marriage brings. But since they don't want to feed politicians using gay marriage as an election issue, they are largely mum.

"It's very hard to speak freely right now," said Judith Butler, a gender theorist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "But many gay people are uncomfortable with all this, because they feel their sense of an alternative movement is dying. Sexual politics was supposed to be about finding alternatives to marriage."

"I've been with the same woman for 13 years," she continued, "and she jokes if I ever tried to marry her she'd divorce me. I know many people who feel the same way."

That's not to say that there isn't a reason to fight for a basic civil right. But ask around. You'll find more than a few gays questioning an institution that mixes property rights with love, church with state. Some also complain that a legal and legislative process that should take time to evolve has become a media circus. They even wonder if they will be forced to marry to receive domestic partnership benefits from their employers. And of course, given the present divorce rate, many feel that most civil unions are more civilized than marriages.

"We have a right to be as miserable as straight people," said the playwright Paul Rudnick, who has been in a gay relationship for 11 years and has not thought about marriage, "especially if we want the gifts." Mr. Rudnick's current play, "Valhalla," at the New York Theater Workshop, makes an argument for the gay contributions to society that have more to do with a passion for beauty and extravagance than propriety and social standing.

But beyond just the "queer eye" contributions of taste and the more substantive one of art commonly associated with gay people, there is the valued point of view of the outsider. "The idea of being different is in itself beautiful," said Jack Waters, a downtown filmmaker in a 22-year relationship, who finds that not having children with his partner, Peter Kramer, lets them serve as mentors in all kinds of ways to younger people.

Who's to say that there aren't other important rights associated with being gay that aren't exactly on the books?

"I like being an outlaw," said Roz Lichter, a lawyer who won't marry her partner.

"We don't have any of the typical social roles imposed on how we live," said Philip Galanes, a novelist in a long-term relationship with no wedding plans. "We have the freedom to be husband and wife rolled into one. If there's so much creativity among gay people, maybe it's because we're allowed to be freer in life in all kinds of ways."

Or maybe it's because we're allowed to be single without being stigmatized.

At least we used to be. These days, with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund publishing an "educational guide" stating that gay people are "very much like everyone else," mowing lawns and having children, and that not allowing them to marry keeps them "in a state of permanent adolescence," you have to wonder if the freedom to define your own life in your own way is going the way of cigarettes in bars.

"Being gay and single is the new smoking," Mr. Rudnick said. "It won't be socially acceptable anymore, and you will have to go outside." Or as Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, told me: "It used to be that the whole point of coming out of the closet was to get people to stop asking you when you are going to get married and have children."

Those days are just about over, for better or for worse.

 

[jfinn]

Re: an Other view

Gay Marriage? How Straight - By BOB MORRIS, NY Times, March 7, 2004

"It's very hard to speak freely right now," said Judith Butler, a gender theorist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "But many gay people are uncomfortable with all this, because they feel their sense of an alternative movement is dying. Sexual politics was supposed to be about finding alternatives to marriage."

"I've been with the same woman for 13 years," she continued, "and she jokes if I ever tried to marry her she'd divorce me. I know many people who feel the same way."

Interesting 'dita,

This is something that's been brought up on the PFlag lists too. Unfortunately I don't think it's either a new dynamic or one necessarily unique to the gay community. History shows us that everytime a minority has been successful in overcoming some forms of predjudice (for lack of a better word) there have been losses as well as gains.

I do however think that this particular point is probably not too threatening since the heterosexual world also has its partners who have not used their option to marry. In the event that gays do win the right to marry, I think the only real pressure to wed will be from the community itself as in, We fought hard for this so you better appreciate it and make your relationship legal.

For me though the issue is not whether or not a gay or lesbian couple choose to marry, but whether they have the legal right to do so.

Jayne

 

[MaxSebastian]

Don't you know anything? Those biggots don't mean "gay apocalypse" literally. They mean it figuratively. Because they know when things are supposed to be taken figuratively and when they are supposed to be taken literally...

I mean, they don't take the Bible to be literally the word of God...

Or at least...

Hmm. Maybe they do.

How does that work?

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Until marriage stops being what it is today, I refuse to get re-married.

 

[dirtylover]

re

I don't think anybody should be allowed to marry for at least ten years of being with their partner. That way, divorce rate would be lower and bored couples would have soemthing to look forward to.

Should gay people be allowed to get married? -Of course Also, christians should be allowed to be gay. And straight people may be christian. And gay.

And people should realise that God and Satan are just flip-sides of the same person. And religions are all much-of muchness, without any very orginal ideas. In fact, why get married? It's old hat.

I liked the story of the dutch girl that fell in love with her roller skates.

 

[SlickTony]

"If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law."

Ha! If anything happened to my husband and the subject came up of marrying my BIL, all our shoes would be off and in the Atlantic before you could say Levirite law!