Gays Taunting Heterosexuals with a Subversive Notion:
A Lawful Union Can Be Stable and Happy
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by Robert Scheer (editorial reprinted in Outlines with permission;
contributing editor to LA Times. rscheer@aol.com)

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.