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Same-sex marriage got a much-needed boost this month with former NBA basketball star Charles Barkley and movie star Brad Pitt offering their endorsements. While it is too soon to call this a trend among heterosexual men, all cultural tsunamis start with trendsetters such as Barkley and Pitt.
On Fox SportsNet's "CMI: The Chris Meyers Interview," Barkley said, "I think if they want to get married, God bless them. Gay marriage is probably 1 percent of the population, so it's not like it's going to be an epidemic. Hey, trust me, I'm never going to kiss you and say, 'Chris, you're sexy.'"
What makes the former National Basketball Association MVP's remarks special is that Barkley is the consummate tough guy. As a player, Barkley was as ferocious as he was fearless, even once tussling with giant Shaquille O'Neal, who is nearly a foot taller.
When a man of Barkley's stature embraces same-sex marriage, it gives tacit permission to every other muscle-bound brawler to support fairness and equality. The message sent to playgrounds across America is clear and unmistakable: "You can have an inclusive view of marriage and still be the toughest, straightest, baddest man on the court or field."
What Barkley did for gay liberation may have the larger affect of liberating enlightened straight athletes who are encouraged to play the ridiculous game of degrading gay people to prove their manhood. Many of these men want to express their disgust with homophobia instead of homosexuals. However, they are afraid that by standing up for their gay friends, they will be labeled gay. Barkley has subtlety reversed this equation by showing that the new way to show one is completely comfortable with his sexuality is to support gay rights.
In an equally stunning revelation, matinee idol Brad Pitt took a bold stand to stop marriage segregation. In an interview with Esquire Magazine, Pitt declared that, "Angie [Angelina Jolie] and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able."
In their efforts to "save" marriage, conservatives are really undermining the institution. As gay people gain more acceptance each year, it may soon become socially unacceptable in some circles to partake in a ceremony associated with sexual orientation apartheid.
Of course, this raises the issue of whether it is appropriate for gay people to attend weddings. There are already some gays who refuse to go to these ceremonies as a way to protest and educate their families and friends on the discrimination they face.
Wrestling with such a momentous decision can be excruciating and create a moral dilemma. On one hand, there is a deep desire to honor the people we love on the most important day of their lives. Skipping such an event means missing a rite of passage and the opportunity for deep emotional bonding with the people we most care about.
Nonetheless, each time we attend heterosexual weddings, we may be perpetuating the ugliest of prejudices and participating in a form of Jim Crow. Skipping weddings is a way of showing extreme sacrifice and can offer a rare opportunity to make our friends and relatives reflect on the injustice and inequality faced by people they love and respect.
The vast majority of GLBT people still attend weddings and view them as apolitical events. However, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain such a position when high-profile heterosexuals are saying that they won't wed until we can.
Although it sometimes appears that the marriage debate is a losing battle, if you look at the bigger picture we are actually winning. The GLBT community has spent the last several years highlighting our love and commitment and it is beginning to have an effect. Even men who define machismo, such as Pitt and Barkley, are recognizing the fundamental unfairness of denying gay people the freedom to marry.
The process of such enlightenment was vividly portrayed in a column by Russell Shaw on the Huffington Post website. In his column, he explains a powerful moment on an airplane when he encountered a gay couple:
"Below the frequent cloud cover, I imagined all those Red state voters, who sincerely believe that the God they prayed to earlier that day (Sunday) would be offended by sanctified unions such as those of the two men I me...And as night fell, and as children slept, I passed the two married gentlemen while on my way to the commode. They were asleep, too. Hand in hand. And it was then I - a straight-but-not-narrow male, realized I was looking at love - a love as real as any in a world with not enough love."
Each day, as more straight people find the concept of two men or women marrying less scary, the religious right should be more and more unsettled that their war against gay marriage is really one against love itself.
And that is one war they ultimately can't win.
15 Comments:
Perhaps a compromise would be to attend the wedding but instead of a gift, make a donation in the name of the newlyweds to your state's marriage equality group.
It would be interesting to see the response of the couple. If they take the opportunity to publicly thank you and point out that not everyone is treated equally, then they are a classy couple. If they are annoyed that they didn't get the place setting, then they didn't deserve a gift anyway.
posted by Timothy Kincaid, at
9/13/2006 1:55 PM
While I appreciate Barkley's support, his comment about gay marriage 'not becoming epidemic' was unintentionally insulting. On a lighter note, whenever I attended weddings I would never go out on the floor with the rest of the single guys to try and catch the garder. I always feel alien and left out at weddings anyway. One time at a wedding I told the lover of my lesbian cousin about not going out to catch the garder and she gave me a good laugh by telling me that she always goes out on the floor and tries to catch the bride's bouquet to prove what a bunch of shit it is. Laugh...
posted by Anonymous, at
9/13/2006 2:38 PM
That sounds like a good compromise, Tim! I don't support boycotting heterosexual weddings to make a political point; that's just mean-spirited, like boycotting Disneyland because it welcomes Gay couples. We can't allow our enemies to make us adopt their tacky tactics and turn us into their looking-glass doppelgangers.
I wonder if those opposed to same-gender marriage would change their minds if they knew what looks like a man marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman was actually something else . . . something that doesn't violate the natural rule of male/female attraction? I wonder if they could ever accept that fact that genitalia isn't always an accurate indication of gender? I wonder if those who are Christians would ever be open to the information that scripture exists which both validates and explains the phenomenon of homosexual orientation? I wonder if they could ever feel joyful that the presence of Lesbians and Gay men on Earth represents the same symbol of God's Covenant with mankind that rainbows in the sky do? (The Gay Rights movement didn't adopt the Rainbow flag by chance; God was definitely involved in the choice.)
I suppose I know the answer. Nothing would change, in fact, the hostility would probably increase! You can't educate people who refuse to be educated. So, we have no choice but to keep fighting the good fight! We can rest assured, though, that ours IS the good fight, no matter what anyone tells us to the contrary.
posted by DC HAMPTON JACOBS, at
9/13/2006 2:51 PM
So Angie and Brad may consider getting married if gays are allowed to? And we are supposed to be grateful for this? The two of them have a few failed marriages already under their belt and Im not sure how many children out of wedlock. In three years they will have both moved on to someone new. They have become the very image of the vapid, self centered celebrity that is short on talent but long on ego.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/13/2006 2:58 PM
Here here to the comment about love as real as any.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/13/2006 6:06 PM
It's only predictable that the celebrity adulterers would stand in solidarity with homosexuals.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have the same problem that homosexuals do: God calls their behavior SIN, just as homosexuality is sin. The wages of sin is death (first physical death, then spiritual death=eternal punishment). Their beauty, their popularity, their money, even their good deeds, will not rescue them from the consequences of their persistent sin.
All men have sinned in many ways - sexual or otherwise, the result is the same: Death. The law exists to help you understand your problem - Christ came to solve your problem.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/19/2006 12:00 PM
Since you seem to have direct line to the Almighty, could you pass the word to Jesus to tell his followers to lay off the gays for a while? I mean He never said anything on the subject, as far as I know. Maybe His more excitable admirers could follow his example. At least they could work on divorce for a while. Talk about the beam in your eye and the mote in your neighbors! If any televangelist ever delivered an hours-long harangue against divorce, I managed to miss it.
(My favorite bumper sticker: "JESUS save me from your followers!")
posted by Anonymous, at
9/21/2006 2:27 PM
My favorite bumper sticker, "The last time religion ran this country, people were burned at the stake."
posted by jekelhyde, at
9/21/2006 9:19 PM
