gay marriage » Joe Salvatore

The road to anarchy is paved with not the sharpest stones from the quarry

Jun 162011

I woke up this morning to a CNN.com posting with the title, “Super Bowl hero warns of ‘anarchy’ if NY approves gay marriage.”

Huh?

As many people know, my boyfriend and I are not beating any civic or church organization’s door down to step in and publicly declare our nuptials for each other. I think marriage is an antiquated institution that reflects an Old World way of thinking about relationships between two people. However, I’m finally starting to accept that it’s a step that many people need to take to validate their relationship. For those who are married, I respect the choice, and I hope that you and your partner have found a multitude of ways to navigate it so that the arrangement works for you, regardless of your sexual orientation.

The retired NY Giants “hero,” David Tyree, famous for his helmet catch in Super Bowl XLII, came out yesterday in defense of marriage between a man and a woman in a video statement for the National Organization for Marriage. As the NY state House of Representatives approved a bill for same-sex marriage legislation yesterday, the opposition needed to pull in the “big guns.” Suffice it to say, there are a few ironies swirling around this statement from Tyree.

First off, Tyree did jail time for a 2004 drug possession charge. You can read about that story in the New York Times article here. That same article also reveals that his estranged girlfriend and now wife was pregnant when he came out of jail. So drug use and pre-marital sex leading to a pregnancy. I’m thrilled that David Tyree has become a rehabilitated, God-fearing, testifying Christian. That’s delightful for him. I’m not so happy about him being held up as someone that we should listen to about the state of the world. Just live your quiet, very wealthy, post-helmet catch life, and leave everyone else alone.

Second, according to the CNN post, Tyree says that “the [New York state] bill’s passage would be the beginning of our country sliding toward…anarchy.”

Oh really?

Doesn’t our helmet catch “hero” realize that in very recent history, people would have said the same thing about African Americans having the right to vote or go to school with white people, which he would have done when he attended Syracuse University? This is not the sharpest position for him to take. And worse (or better for those who think about and respect history), the National Organization for Marriage is putting this guy and this position at the forefront of its campaign to stop the passage of the bill for same-sex marriage in New York state.

These anti-gay people are getting more and more desperate, and they’re resorting to spokespeople with sketchy credentials to speak for their positions.

I know. They aren’t “anti-gay,” they’re against same-sex marriage. “There’s a difference.”

Whatever.

Find some sharper stones in your quarry, people. But remember, lay them down gently (as Renee Post likes to say) and don’t throw them. You just had your windows cleaned.

PUP: A potentially unpopular position

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Feb 232011

So media outlets are all abuzz with the Obama administration’s statements today about the Defense of Marriage Act. I first learned about it when the American Educational Research Association (AERA) queer sig list-serv exploded in a flurry of emails this afternoon, and since then I’ve had a chance to read CNN.com and the New York Times coverage.

While the Obama administration’s statements are encouraging and could very well represent a major wind change in the US government’s position on what constitutes a marriage, I am left feeling a bit sad about it all. To me, the LGBT community’s fixation on the word “marriage” has been nothing short of frustrating, and I had hoped that maybe people would eventually come around to the idea that “marriage” is not necessarily the word that same-sex committed couples should be adopting to define their long-term relationships.

For me, “marriage” does imply a long-term, committed relationship between a man and a woman; it does not describe the long-term relationship that I have with a man. The term “gay marriage” is at best anachronistic, and at worst, an example of a heteronormative institution that gays and lesbians desperately want to access. Which quite honestly confuses me given the historical origins of marriage as a transaction involving property: “wife” is given to “husband” and husband’s family receives her dowry. Antiquated, offensive, and backward by today’s supposedly “liberated” standards. Yet the LGBT community, fighting for the rights of all its people, is in a rush to the “gay marriage altar.” It is a befuddling contradiction that essentially says to me, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Don’t get me wrong. I ABSOLUTELY want the rights and privileges afforded to my heterosexual counterparts in their long-term relationships, and I get that side of the argument for “gay marriage.” I want those rights and privileges for all people. I just don’t want the history that comes along with the word “marriage.”