Letters to the Editor
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this again?
Oh g-d, this again?
I live in Massachusetts, which is, as everyone knows, the only state where homosexual marriages are allowed. I was there for the hearings and the demonstrations two years ago -- there for the hatred spewed by right wingers, there for the hugs from my queer compatriots, there for an interesting discussion with a man who opposed gay marriage and actually could talk with me about it, there for the kids on both side, the gay parents' kids treated lovingly and respectfully and many of the right-wingers' kids shouting lewd anti-gay slogans I hope they did not understand, there with the gay couple who'd been with each other for 50 years and hoped beyond hope that their union would be recognized, there to have vomit thrown on me by someone on the other side, there for several hundred supporters of gay marriage filling the statehouse with patriotic songs while the right-wingers (the leaders almost all bused in from out of state) seethed because we'd "stolen" "their" songs.
And gay marriage became legal, and guess what? The sky hasn't fallen, the milk hasn't curdled, Massachusetts families are about the same as they were before, except there are some thousands of same sex couples who've made a state-sanctioned commitment to each other, more kids have parents who are legally married (an important thing since gays in our state disproportionately adopt special-needs kids, who need the protection of stable families more than other kids), people go about their lives much as they always have, and nothing terrible happens. We rank among the lowest in the country for divorce rates, teen pregnancy rates, and so forth, just as we have for years. It is such a non-issue for most people here... Now I just wish the rest of the country would pay attention and actually see what gay marriage HAS NOT done to our Commonwealth.