Mawiage.

That bwessed awangement.

For the life of me I've not been able to start writing about gay marriage without thinking of Peter Cook in the Princess Bride. This undoubtedly makes me a wicked, insensitive bitch. Which is fine, since I'm already a “fag hag”. Bitch is only the next step up the ladder.

Anyway, here in merry old US of A, the fearless Bishops of the Catholic Church are going about their business making life difficult for gay people. Pope John Paul II, in 1999, spoke of ”the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination.” The church believes that heterosexual marriage is divinely ordained because of its role in procreation. On this belief stems the whole of the objection to gay marriage.

The question is, why do I, as a godless agnostic, care at all what restrictions the hierarchy of the church places on their members? After all, if you sign into a community, a religion, you should be ready to adhere to the laws of that house. It's kind of like telling your teenager, “as long as you live in this house, you will follow the rules of this house”. The thing is, if you are in any sort of enlightened household, you will have figured out that everyone in the household should have a say in what those laws are. It is not in the best interest of a family to have despotic parents. You have to be open to change.

The Catholic Church is nothing if not a despotic parent.

But there is another stink here in the state of Massachusetts, on the so called “secular” end of things, in the form of our “governor” Mitt Romney. He decided to organize his own little gathering of intolerant, homophobic (though some will vehemently deny it) citizens this past weekend to lobby for a vote: should gay people be given the same rights as heterosexual people and be allowed to marry? The premise that basic human rights should go up for a vote is a nauseating one.

So here we are, and this is where things get crazy. Because these people are not living in the same world as the rest of us. They are existing, on some fundamental level, in their own idealistic universe where there are no children without a father and a mother, where MARRIED heterosexual couples are all able and willing to have children. It is a place where everyone has the same priorities and the same relationship with ”god”. In this land there is no poverty, no hunger, no disease, and no gay people. I suppose one might call it “heaven” for them.

Here on earth, in the here and now, we have all sorts of unpleasantness. And yet, with love, we are able to transcend much of it, and be rich on our own terms. But this is irrelevant to Mitt, and his “holiness” and their followers.

Gay people cannot procreate, they say, so therefore, should be denied the right to marry. It doesn't matter that infertility, old age, disease, divorce, abuse and accidents happen to married couples, denying them the power of procreation. Gay people are “immoral”. Unlike the rest of humanity, which is a bastion of morality and uprightness. Especially Catholic priests.

With all this denial, one very important element has been shoved into the closet (besides the fact that gay parents are just as good as straight parents, and that the rate of heterosexual divorce is dismally high).

Love. Two people love each other. It starts as love often does, with infatuation, that particular turning of the stomach, and the feeling that every word the other utters is the most wonderful thing you've ever heard. It is intoxicating, exciting, romantic, and mysterious. But couples who are unable to go farther than this stage will not last, no matter what sexual orientation they have. And if they have a child in this stage, it will very likely end up with a very different sort of family than the one in that gayless heaven. Perhaps the kid will have a mom, and grandparents. Or an aunt, or uncle, or they will choose to go with their father, or they will be left completely alone and at the mercy of the state. All of these potentialities can end in a loving environment, or a broken one.

Regardless of what people are told to believe by their various heads of state and church, all people should have the right to marriage and family, and those families should have a right to equal protection from the state, regardless of whether the family is headed by two men, two women, or a man and a woman. Marriage is about committed love, that love that comes after the infatuation is over, and the reality of change reveals itself. The realization that you and your partner are not static beings, that you will both change, and are willing to see where those changes take you.

This house, this earth, holds many more ways of living than are acceptable to those determined to repress and control the fates of others. We are not living in your house, people. You are living in ours. So you'll have to live by our rules, and let. people. live.