The Real World: An Argument Against Homosexual Marriage
In September of 2009 the country's largest gay civil rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, sicced a bunch of volunteers on the crowd of the Adams Morgan Day Festival. Here is the dialogue of one such encounter.
"Do you have a moment for human rights?"
"Oh, good. My name is Mike and I work for the Human Rights Campaign. We are against marriage that excludes...I mean we're for marriage that includes everyone. And by everyone I mean gay people. Is that right? Yeah. We want marriage to stop excluding...I mean start excluding...maybe finish including. Oh, nuts. We want gays to get married. Because right now my boyfriend and I can't get married even."
"No, we're not brothers, we're boyfriends. I can't believe you think we look alike. See! We're wearing matching rings with the HRC logo on them. That means we're married by the gays. We went to the Human Rights Campaign store—it's over in Dupont Circle and it sells items with their equal sign logo on it to—and got them. The have that logo on just about everything with a flat surface from baby bottles to butt plugs. It's great. I can't believe you thought we were brothers. I mean, his muscles are way bigger than mine and he's blonde and his his short hair with the spoiler in the front is like half an inch longer than mine."
"I guess you're right, we do have on matching outfits, but that's only because we're in our HRC 'Marriage Is So Gay' T-shirts. You should have seen us yesterday. His plaid shorts were a totally different color from my plaid shorts. Oh, and the day before his True Religion jeans were a totally different cut from mine and he was wearing an A&F T-shirt and I was wearing one from Hollister. I mean, our looks couldn't be more different."
"Are we out, you ask? Oh, you were talking to Tanner? Oh, don't talk to him, he doesn't say anything. He's actually a mute. But yes, I am fully out and Tanner is going to come out to his mother when he gets home to Colorado. He's going to have to write it out on a piece of paper, since he can't really talk. He's afraid how she might react. His parents parents are really conservative."
"Yeah, coming out does sucks. You got that right, but I'm sure we'll be OK in the end. But those are our personal struggles. What we really need from you is your support to get married, because I am a practicing Christian and one day I want to get married in the church. Right now my straight housemate is in a wedding in a church and it's two straight people and that's what I really want. I want to go to Philly and eat cheese steaks and spend the day with a camera crew and a bunch of strangers and watch people get gay married in a church."
"What? No, right now I can't get married in a church anywhere and the HRC told us that, so it must be true. And if you can't get married in a church, it doesn't really matter. Oh, wait. Is that it "
"Oh, I didn't know about those denominations."
"What? Most Jews can get married in a synagogue? That's great, but I don't want to convert, because then I'd go to hell. But really, we need you to support gay marriage."
"How, you ask? Oh it's easy, just wear this sticker. Oh, and give money to HRC. See, it's as easy as that. And for your donation, we'll give you a free video from this band called Wicked Liquid. Yeah, you've probably seen everyone on TV wearing their shirts but never heard of the band. Well, here is their music video."