Gays Taunting Heterosexuals with a Subversive Notion: A Lawful Union Can Be
Stable and Happy

by Robert Scheer

After careful consideration I have decided that I, too, am opposed to gay
marriages. Not that any gays have asked to marry me; but ever since Bob
Dole and Pat Buchanan made this a vital issue in the presidential campaign,
I have felt the need to speak out.

I agree with the conservatives that gays cannot fulfill the sacred
obligation of marriages, which is to procreate. And to be consistent, I
believe that heterosexual marriages that prove childless after nine months
should be dissolved. This would end Dole's, Buchanan's and Newt Gingrich's
current marriages; but I am sure they will understand.

They are also right in arguing that gay marriages are very threatening to
heterosexual marriages. If you've ever lived near a gay couple, you would
know that they set a very bad example. I remember trying to be
heterosexually married once in the notorious Castro district in San
Francisco. My wife of the time kept comparing me very unfavorably to gay
spouses. They managed to earn a living; participate in civic life; and
still find the time to do the dishes, fix the sink, and even paint their
houses. I kept telling her it's unnatural for a man to be so handy. Her
unreasonably heightened expectations soon ended our marriage.

Another thing is that gay men who want to get legally married as opposed to
just living together or, better yet, having one-night stands are clearly
abnormal. I have never met a hetersexual man who was thrilled at the
prospect of tying the legal knot. That's why we get stupidly drunk and
destructive at darkly ritualistic pre-wedding bachelor parties.

My heterosexual friends always thought that their live-in relationships
were going along just fine and suspiciously questioned why their
girlfriends felt the need to rush into marriage. My experience extends to a
recently overheard conversation at a coffee house in my neighborhood. A
scruffy, never-employed screenwriter was panicked that the successful
executive woman he was being fixed up with for a blind date would prove
desperate to lure him into marriage. Heterosexual men think they can never
be too careful on this issue.

Marriage is scary. Suddenly, you are legally responsible for someone else's
debts, health insurance, and moods; and that person can make a claim on
your income forever. Anyone who is eager to vow, in the eyes of the law, to
love, honor, and cherish another in sickness and until death, has got to
have a screw loose.

Unless one is in love. When heterosexual men are truly smitten, they become
desperate to capture their prey before she gets away. But this wouldn't
apply to gay marriages, because gay men never fall in love. All they care
about is partying and sex, unlike heterosexual men, who mature as they move
on in life.

You will notice that I haven't said anything about lesbians. That's
because, being a heterosexual man, I'm convinced that lesbians don't really
exist except in a kind of purgatory until a real man turns them around. So
few of us and so little time.

So how do I explain all those gay men and lesbian women lining up to get
married as soon as the opportunity presents itself? Even the recent
semiofficial ceremony presided over by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
brought out dozens of gay couples, most of whom claimed to have been
cohabiting happily for a long time.

The answer is that they want to taunt us heterosexuals with the subversive
notion that gays can be stable and happy. It's a plot to undermine our
time-honored national values and the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers did not provide for gay marriages, even though surely
some were gay. Conservatively speaking, at least 3% of the signers of the
Constitution must have been gay, since that's the low estimate for any
population sample. It was probably higher, given that they were a pretty
talented bunch and wore wigs. They also never declared gays to be
three-fifths of a person, which indicates a certain self-interested
tolerance, if you get my drift.

Clearly, the Founding Fathers were as comfortable with hypocrisy as most
politicians are today. But they forgot to write a "Don't ask, don't tell"
clause into the Constitution. They also left marriage matters up to the
states. Darn, and then the Supreme Court of Hawaii had to go and find that
their state's Constitution may protect gay marriages. What if that ruling
sticks and it turns out that thousands of gays achieve happiness in
marriage? Dole is right; it could rock the very "foundation of marriage."

Worse yet, gay couples would be eligible to purchase family insurance,
share health benefits, file joint tax returns, and have the right to visit
a sick spouse in the hospital. The republic could fall.
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