Ed Jackson is a photographer, an avid reader of TNG, and lives in Petworth with his “registered Domestic Partner.” He is often accused of being a “Pollyanna” and belives that strangers are only friends he has yet to meet.

The first of a two-part Ode to Gay Marriage

Many lessons have been learned in the aftermath of the Prop 8 fiasco. Perhaps the most disturbing is that supporters of the California referendum didn’t seem to understand that their vote would strip rights away from a specific group of people, thus opening the door for rights to be taken away from any group of people. Had they fully grasped the consequences, it is highly likely the measure would have failed.

As our community tries to determine next steps, I would like to echo two strategies that I firmly believe will stem the tide of opposition to same sex marriage and shift public support away from the staunch hard-liners who are, quite frankly, kicking our asses. The LGBT community needs to 1) make a moral argument in support of gay marriage (something other than “fairness” and “equality”); and 2) make this issue personal by bringing our relationships out of the bedroom and into the living room.

Keith Olbermann got the ball rolling on the moral argument front stating, among other things:

This isn’t about yelling. This isn’t about politics. This is about the human heart. In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option … A world around them still anchored in love and marriage and you are saying, ‘No. You can’t have any. … You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your god and the universal love you say he represents? Then, spread happiness, this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness … You are asked now by your country, perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or the other … You don’t have to help it … Just don’t extinguish it, because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know, and you don’t understand, and maybe you don’t even want to know. That love, is in fact the ember of your love for your fellow person. [T]his is the only world we have, and the other guy counts too…

Mr. Olbermann, you have my respect and unyielding gratitude.

However, the LGBT community must do our part. We need to make this battle personal and make sure our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and others know exactly what is at stake. For 40 years, LGBT people have fought to come out of the closet and to gain public acceptance of our sexual orientation, yet, at the same time, we have hidden our relationships away like the ill-fitting, tattered pair of underwear we only put on when all our other choices have been eliminated.

Sure, we will introduce our significant others, yet we seldom provide details about our relationships (things other than vacation destinations, gifts, dinner plans, social events attended, etc.). In comparison, our heterosexual loved ones and colleagues don’t hesitate to volunteer information about where they met, how long they dated, the details of their wedding and their problems as husband and wife. “But,” they usually add, “you are so lucky that you don’t have to deal with this stuff.” Why do they think that?

They think it because they don’t know our stories. It is time to bring our love out of the bedroom and into the living room. By that I mean that most people who deny us our right to marry, even those who love us, believe that our sexual orientation is about being physically attracted to people of the same sex, but we know it is about WAY more than that. Our sexual orientation only suggests that the person with whom we will choose to spend the rest of our lives, in addition to sharing our hopes and dreams, will also share our gender.

We joke about telling boy-meets-boy or girl-meets-girl stories, but that is EXACTLY what we need to do. We have them, and they are powerful, compelling, romantic and wonderful. We must demonstrate that our relationships are complicated and make us crazy, and, just like theirs, the overwhelming majority of our time with our partners is spent in the living room, the kitchen, or with our kids.

By bringing our love into the metaphorical “living room,” we have the potential to demonstrate that our orientation is neither a choice nor a preference. When it is defined that way, it becomes much easier for others to minimize or dismiss our relationships because they cannot relate to “choosing” to have sex with someone who is the same gender. But, they can relate to love–unrequited, unconditional, irrational, misunderstood, blind, at first site, “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” and in all its other incarnations. We have to reframe our relationships in the context of that ageless paradigm: Love … both true and enduring.

Instead, our strategy–as it were–has involved attacking our opponents and pointing out their hypocrisy. After all, how can “traditional” marriage be so “sacred” if nearly 50 percent end in divorce? Some of us are embracing the “If I can’t have it, then no one can have it” approach. They believe the State is over reaching its mandate and has no business sanctioning marriage. Their position states that marriage should be reserved for those who want a religious ceremony. Everyone else can have a civil union, which will be the equivalent of what we now call marriage.

But by tearing down the institution to which we are trying to gain access, we do ourselves a disservice. We also shift the focus away from the real issue … Our Love. And while the cold-hearted bastards of the world might be immune to it, anyone else who has ever been in love is going to be able to relate. Being in love feels fan-frigging-tastic!! So much so that both homo and heterosexuals are willing to risk additional heartbreak and rejection to find the real deal. If we have tasted it once, no matter how badly we were burned, that majestic, ethereal feeling pulls at our proverbial heart strings until we once again are willing to take that leap of faith.

There is a scene in Matrix Revolutions where a guy says Love is “just a word.” It is the idea the word conveys that is important. That “idea” is universal. It transcends race, religion, ethnicity, geography, disability and all the other bullshit walls and labels we put up to protect our hearts. More important, it is bigger than the policies put in place by others to impose limitations on our love.

That is why I firmly believe the time to start bringing our relationships out of the bedroom and into the living room is NOW. So on Monday mornings, when the football widows are commiserating around the water cooler, feel free to chime in because there are plenty of gays and lesbians who lose their partners during football season. When Bob stops by to vent because his wife expects him to read her mind, agree with him. Tell him you share his frustration and that your partner is the same way. In fact, if you could read his mind, you would finally understand why he waits to pick a fight with you about some shit that happened two weeks ago. The other day I was talking to a straight friend and mentioned one of my partner’s habits that drives me crazy. My friend nearly jumped out of his chair exclaiming, “I KNOW!!! WHAT IS THAT ABOUT!?!”

We should also invite our coworkers and neighbors to our homes for dinner or to watch Liza on pay-per-view while “those two” (insert eye roll) go head-to-head, repeatedly
killing each other on XBox 360. If that combination doesn’t fit, pick your own. The point is that there are people who overwhelmingly support efforts to deny LGBT people our right to marry. We have to provide them with every opportunity to see that our relationships are just as ordinary and mundane as theirs.

I am not saying we need to “prove” ourselves worthy. Screw that. I am saying we need to wage an in-the-trenches, person-to-person, public education campaign. They hear homosexual and think bedroom. We need them to think living room. Sure, the people we love are of the same sex, but guess what? We have relationships with our partner’s parents and siblings. We are Jewish, Agnostic, Christian, Muslim, and Atheist. We pay our bills and bitch about taxes. We have hobbies, pick up our dry cleaning, check the air in our tires, and use compact florescent light bulbs. Sure it sounds boring, but that’s who we are and what we do.

I won’t speak for others here, but I don’t want or need “special” rights. I only want that which is guaranteed to me: Equal protection under the law; freedom and liberty; the pursuit of happiness; my “certain inalienable rights.” I want to know that when we are ready, my partner and I can get married. Why?

When I am running from “this” chore to “that” activity, the only thing in the world that can slow me down is catching a glimpse of the man I love. When it happens, he usually isn’t doing anything special. He could be working in the yard and covered in sweat and dirt, but in that moment, my hectic schedule is gone. Time stands still. My heart races. My mouth gets dry. I feel like I am back in the 7th grade, and he is the beautiful boy in my school I am “crushing on.” I stand there and look at him. My soul smiles. He always catches me and asks, “What are you doing?” I say, “nothing,” and can feel the blood rushing to my face. Then he playfully roles his eyes and says, “I know what you were doing.”
“What?” I ask.
“You were looking at me like you love me.”
“Whatever,” I say. He teases me adding, “You are the sappiest boy I know.”
“Uh huh. Someone is a little full of himself today,” I tease back, which causes him to chuckle out loud. I love his laugh.
We both know I was busted–Again. I go back to my schedule with a smile on my face and an extra little something in my step.

He makes me happy. He’s not my boyfriend or lover. I call him my “partner,” but he is more than that. He is my forever.

The battle for gay marriage isn’t going to be won with public opinion polls and issue briefs. It will be won by debunking the notion that our relationships are fodder for tales of salacious bedroom shenanigans. We will not win by denigrating heterosexual marriages. We will win by openly discussing our love, our struggles, our victories, our losses, and our journeys to carve out our own little niche of happiness in a world full of lonely souls who are desperately seeking the same thing.

To Be Continued…

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