WurfWhile

What seems striking about gay marriage in the weeks since the Massachusetts decision is its proliferation. Not only has it spread geographically to New Paltz, Oregon and San Francisco, among other places, but thousands of couples have tied the knot. Now these numbers may not be much relative to the gay population in the U.S. - but (especially to social conservatives) they ain’t nuthin’ either. Who are these people? The ’sampling’ is skewed because of the locations (San Francisco and Portland) where it occurs, and who has the wherewithal and desire to get to there, but it seems like their might be more lesbian couples than gay men (roughly 60% lesbian — although this is really rough data - with a lot of couples not counted because their names weren’t readily gender identified), and it seems like most in San Francisco (55%) were college educated and in the 36 - 50 year old range. However, there were a significant number of older people - over 17%, and about a quarter of the couples were younger (18-35).

Why does it seem like such a big deal to people? Outside of media-hype, I’m guessing it’s because many heterosexuals haven’t given much thought to gay marriage - I know I hadn’t, until my brother figured out he was gay a few years ago - and even then I didn’t think about it too much. It wasn’t really in the eye of the mainstream public. I remember around 1990 discussing gay marriage briefly with one of my political science professors at Rutgers - a great teacher, and a great man. Back then it was quite academic to me - I don’t know that I knew of more than one bisexual I could name, although I must have unwittingly known many more GLBT people at Rutgers and elsewhere. The general context of the discussion was social stability, and one of us suggested that gay marriage would be a good thing - I remember we both agreed.

I’m guessing my prejudice, and it is fair to call it that, until recently would have been to think that not many gay people would be interested in marriage. Why would I have thought that? The media image of gays I have grown up with is primarily of the young, frequently flaming, unattached clubbing set. Gay people, unless we know them, don’t seem to exist beyond their thirties - much less as the elderly. Howard Dean incorporated an observation along these lines in his speeches during the Democratic campaign, telling of an elderly veteran who asked him about his position on civil unions. Dean asked the man if he had a son or daughter that he was thinking about, only to be surprised that the man was talking about himself, and his long-time partner.

The gay media image is akin to the treatment of women in films - there are rarely older leading ladies - demonstrating our worship of, and bias towards, youth. Until recently with shows like “Queer Eye,” “Will and Grace,” and Six Feet Under, gays have rarely been portrayed at all in the media. Yes, we see annual Gay Pride Parades televised during the news for 30 seconds. They are likely as representative of gays as the St. Patrick’s Day Parades are of the Irish. While the new ‘gay’ shows and portrayals are a measure of progress, at least gays are on TV, they still play heavily into stereotypes (with the possible exception of “Six Feet” which I’ve only seen once, and does seem to fight at least some of the stereotypes). These stereotypes don’t include marriage or long-term, monogamous relationships and, without other experience, most people probably haven’t really thought much about gay marriage. Until now. And now we may finally be ready to grow up, and see gays for what they are, people like you and me, capable of love and commitment. Getting back to my ‘prejudice’ mentioned above, I don’t know how many gay people will want to marry, but I don’t know that it matters either - or at least it matters no more than believing that strong marriages, gay or straight, are good for society. I still believe they are.