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[Taken from the LOS ANGELES TIMES 4-2-96 editorial pages]
"The Real Threat to Real Men"
Marriage: Gays want to taunt heterosexuals
with the subversive notion that 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 marriage, 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'm 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 of 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 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 heterosexual man who was
thrilled at the prospect of tying the legal knot. That's why we get
stupidly drunk and destructive at darkly ritualistic prewedding 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, 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 30% 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.
Robert Scheer is a Times contributing editor. He can be reached
via e-mail at: rscheer@aol.com
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