Reply #44: I used to be on the "get rid of marriage in favor of civil unions for all" bandwagon.

[hunter]

Then I realized that was a bad idea. Marriage is marriage and it's something a lot of people want, gay or straight.

As a young man it would have saved me a whole lot of trauma if gay marriage had been an ordinary and accepted thing in our society. Instead I got sucked into a bloody disaster of a relationship with a very religious young woman who didn't even know a homosexual relationship was possible, much less that long term gay relationships existed, or that she herself was gay. I was so fucking naive I didn't tune in that she liked girls as much as I did and the only reason I was around was that her own "family values" required her to have a boyfriend even if he was a socially awkward computer nerd. She finally figured it herself when she met the woman she married.

Every gay kid should know there are married gay couples out there, even the kids who are unfortunate enough to grow up in families hostile to homosexuality. I fly my rainbow flag her because marriage is a human right and I think all kids should see committed gay relationships as ordinary and worthy of all the legal privileges and responsibilities of marriage.

I'm fortunate there was never any homophobia in my own family -- my parents had gay friends, even my grandparents had gay friends since it was Hollywood, but homosexuality was still was hidden and hush-hush because it was a dangerous world for anyone who was gay.

Here's a picture of Ramon Novarro striking a pose for my grandma and her sister when they were high school kids:



Ramon Navarro was a Mexican Actor who became a silent movie star in Hollywood as a "Latin Lover." He was also gay and was killed in an encounter with "some good Catholic boys" he had hired from what would now be called an escort service. They were caught and sentenced to long prison terms, but were almost immediately released on probation.

Stuff like that still goes on. We've got to get people past our society's cruel prejudices against homosexuals.