The Gay Man, Marriage, and Me
The Supreme Court of California has opened the legal doors for men to marry men and women to marry women. Homosexuals have no idea what they are in for - having a spouse is much different from having a lover.
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This weekend I was the guest in the home of a gay man. I don’t think he knows that I know that he’s gay. I hardly think he cares. And, other than the amusing fact that he still has occasional sex with his ex-wife, I don’t care either.
He left his wife and took on a male partner. His wife and his partner don’t like each other. In light of the amusing fact above, I’m not surprised.
I used to work with a gay gentleman. His name was Carl. From time-to-time we’d have lunch together. One afternoon, at a pizzeria, Carl recognized the guy making the pizzas. He knew him from one of the gay bars he frequented.
Carl started flirting with this guy like a girl looking for a prom date. I was surprised that I got a little uncomfortable and excused myself to the parking lot.
When Carl returned I said, “Don’t do that. That made me feel weird.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Start batting your eyes at guys like that and acting like a school girl. That was just a little too gay,” I said.
“Why, are you jealous?”
“Jealous? Of what? Do you think I want to get in your pants?”
“Well, from the way you’re acting, yes.”
Carl really thought I was gay. When I told him that I was married, that my wife was expecting our first child, he was shocked.
“I thought for sure you were gay. I mean, you’re a nurse. And you’re slight. And you hang out with a gay guy.”
Several months after that, he did come on to me. I reiterated that I was married. “Jim, I’ve had more married men than gay men.”
I believe him.
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Human beings are social animals. We have evolved societies beyond the family unit and small regional bands. We have political and religious societies; work and hobby societies; game and support societies. And on and on.
We have a need, a yearning, an instinct to be in a group.
Similarly, the human animal has a strong desire to pair-bond with his/her sexual partner. This strong desire, this biological instinct, evolved because the man-woman pair can more successfully raise children, and pass on the coupled genes, than one person (woman) alone.
Eventually some of our societies formalized this pair-bond, this mating-couple, this marriage. Our religious societies sanctified the marriage. Our governmental societies legalized and heaped benefits on the marriage. The two became one.
What started as instinctual pair-bonding for the process of successfully bringing genes through to the next generation has become a religious and governmental institution that is not bound to raising children.
People of who have a sexual attraction to the same gender still have this strong desire to pair-bond with his/her sexual partner. A governmental society that gives benefits and rights to pair-bonded sexual couples and states in its founding document that laws need to treat all citizens equally, ought to be blind to the gender of that couple.
It just makes sense to me that all pair-bonded couples have the same benefits and rights. The pair-bonded homosexual couples ought to legally be married.
Religious organizations, especially Christian ones where Jesus has already given us an example of staying out of governmental affairs, ought not have a say in the government’s role in gay marriage. It has nothing to do with them. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
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