What They're Afraid of Is Perfectly Normal

Firstly, let me state for the record that I am sick and tired of a lot of things these days. There are a lot of things for which I just have no patience, and I think that’s a good thing. Right now, I am sick and tired of the same-sex marriage debate (although I’m willing to continue to participate in it for as long as it takes). It should be a non-issue in that it should be common sense that any two consenting adults should be allowed to enter into a legal contract, which is all a civil marriage really is. I am sick and tired of right-wing fundamentalists who use their religion as a weapon to keep me down as a second-class citizen. (And, by right-wing fundamentalists, please be advised that I am not singling out Christians; there are ultra-conservative Conservative Jews, not to mention Orthodox Jews, who are just as guilty of this as are the Pat Robertsons of the world.) I am sick and tired of being talked about in public by "experts" who claim to know who I am and how I live, and I am also sick and tired of straight people telling me I need to be patient. Honestly, I'm tired of being patient. Damn it, I want my rights, and I want them now!

On the other hand, I am indeed a lucky man. I have good friends, good health and good energy, good people in my life, I have MAC OS 10.3.9 and 80 GB of RAM, I have 5,975 songs on my iPod and room for 10,000 more, I get to travel to Hawaii by myself at least once a year, and so much more. Most importantly I have two wonderful brothers, the younger of whom, Allan, also happens to be gay. (Yup, our folks got it right two out of three times, but don’t get me wrong, we love our straight brother as much as we would had our parents batted 1000!)

The other night, Allan and I were discussing a new anti-gay ballot that will most certainly come up for a vote in California in 2006, and he brought up a point that I had not previously considered. I hold the point of view that people who support anti-gay legislation are just plain mean people, and I really do believe that they are mean. I mean, really, would a nice person vote to pass laws that would keep two people from being allowed to visit each other in the hospital? Of course not! For the most part, they are mean, insecure people, and like most mean and insecure people, the only way they can feel secure is by keeping other people down. They are mean, they are mean-spirited, and they are afraid of anything that is different. This is the point I was making to Allan. He responded by saying “you know, they’re not really afraid of us being different, they’re afraid of us being the same.” I stopped for a second and asked him to explain. What they’re afraid of at this point, he said, is that equality in marriage has become the focal point of what we are fighting for these days. When we march for Gay Pride each June, they love being able to focus on the gays in leather, the drag queens, the Dykes on Bikes in various stages of undress, anything that looks “different” or “abnormal” to them, so that they can continue to feel justified in their bigotry, and continue to attempt to pass that bigotry on as their legacy to their children. But now, when they see us coming out of the "ghettos" of the Castro, West Hollywood, the West Village, and moving next door and leading so-called normal lives – two-income families in monogamous relationships, raising well-adjusted children, having backyard barbecues, attending their synagogues and their churches and their PTA meetings, fighting their fires, keeping the peace, running for office – that’s what scares them the most. They used to be afraid of us throwing our differences at them; now, Allan says, they are more afraid of us throwing our similarities at them. Because the more “normal” we look to them, the harder it will be to convince their children that there is something wrong with us, and the harder it will be for them to keep us down.

Allan has a point, and it’s a good one, and I will accept that some of these people are afraid of us looking as normal as they'd like to think THEY are. But, at the same time, I still hold that a lot of these people are just plain mean. And insecure. And power-hungry. And that’s what I have very little patience for these days.