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If, like me, you're gay and politically conservative, the whipsaw is even more intense. As a Catholic, I love my church. But I must come to terms with its hierarchy's hatred of the very core of my being. I admire this President deeply, but I have to acknowledge that he believes my relationship is a threat to his. In the coming weeks, it will be hard not to dread the prospect of this second-class status becoming enshrined in the Constitution. Whatever bridges gays and straights have built between them could be burned in a conflagration of bitterness and anger. This year could be for gays what 1968 was for African Americans: the moment hope turns into rage.
Many say they are not hostile toward gay people; they just don't think gays should be regarded as equal to heterosexuals under the law or that gay love is as valid as straight. How am I or any homosexual supposed to respond to that? How much more personal an issue can you get?
It seems as if heterosexuals are willing to tolerate homosexuals, but only from a position of power. They have few qualms about providing legal protections, decrying hate crimes, watching gay TV shows, even having a relative bring her female spouse to Thanksgiving dinner. Yet arguing that the lesbian couple is legally or morally indistinguishable from a straight couple is where many draw the line. That's why marriage is such a fundamental issue. Allowing gay marriage is not saying, We Will Tolerate You. It's saying, We Are You. This, it seems, we have a hard time doing.
I'll know we've changed when we see a show called Straight Eye for the Gay Guy. In it a group of heterosexual men prep a gay man for the night he asks his boyfriend to marry him. When the boyfriend says yes, the straight guys cheer, and the gay guy chokes up. That will be the day gay people are no longer ornaments or accessories or objects of either derision or compassion. That will be the day gay people will finally have the description we have been seeking for so long: human beings.