Mr. Bitter Editorial

Gay Marriage? Who Cares?

If there’s one issue that could have less to do with me as a heterosexual male it’s gay marriage.

It will have no bearing on my life. It will not change how I live or how I worship or choose not to worship. It will not make it any easier or harder to pay my rent. It will not make my job any more fulfilling. It won’t make me thinner or fatter. The sum total of its impact will be zero. So what’s the fuss?

Arguments against gay marriage range from the apocalyptical to just plain non-sensical. But the bottom line seems to be the same. Gay marriage will somehow destroy the traditional family. How? Well that’s never been fully explained. It just will. Because two people of the same sex being legally recognized by the state and the church in the institute of marriage will what? Cause husbands to look covetously over the fence at Mary’s hubby Jack who always keeps himself in good shape and likes to cut the hedges with his shirt off in the sun. Or does Mary think back to that one night in university after she smoked a little too much weed and found herself starring at her roommate Tammy in her underwear and wonder … what if? Is the only thing that’s keeping this Sodom and Gomorrah from happening on Canadian streets and the streets of the world the laws restricting gay marriage? Are we that close to the edge?

The problem isn’t gay marriage its self but the entire idea of homosexuality. It really, really seems to bug us straights. We can’t seem to quite figure it out. It scares us. We think every gay man is going to try and hit on us and more ominously try and “convert” us. We also seem to harbour the porno stereotype that if we were to come across two women copulating they’d gladly let us join in on the fun. They couldn’t possibly be that gay, could they, that’d they’d turn down a full erect penis?

Why any self respecting gay person would stay in these medieval religions to fight for change instead of just joining more liberal churches remains a mystery to me – though I guess had Rosa Parks felt the same she just would have taken another bus.

The “cultural war” that is apparently consuming our neighbours to the south has caused few casualties up here in the north. Though some religious groups here are now conspiring to make the Federal Conservatives even more unelectable. The conservative’s zeal for political power (which seems a little un-Jesus like to me) is a reflection of fear; fear of a world that seems to be, if not leaving them behind, openly mocking their belief system. The truth is that the modern world makes any attempt at literal interpretation of the bible a folly. The earth was not created in six days. Dinosaurs and mankind did not live a Flintstone like existence. God has long since given over control of our lives to us: the hairless apes who remade his quiet little Garden of Eden in our own image. Goodness and morality are not the sole property of the religious whether they are Muslim, Christian or Jew. Do we really believe that before the advent of today’s major religions everyone lived completely amoral existences? How far would we have gotten had we been busy murdering each other and screwing each other’s wives and girlfriends? I'm sure the ancient greeks - many of their gods were examples of how not to live your life - might have had a thing or two to say about that. Not to mention the Egyptians, Babylonians etc.

If you find homosexuality and gay marriage offensive that’s your choice. It’s a free country and you can choose to be offended by whatever you like whether it be same-sex couples, hats or puppy dogs. But being offended by something doesn’t give you the right to stop others from participating in that offense. I find reality TV offensive. Does that give me the right to stop others from watching it? No, I simple choose not to watch because nothing that appears in those shows will affect my life at all. And neither will gay marriage.