It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Summer 2011 was a strange year.
I was just starting my process of moving back to the District and it happened: every.single.one.of.my.friends.came.out. At once. I’m not kidding. It eventually became a running joke that every national holiday (mainly just LDW and MDW) was someone else’s turn to come out. I, at this point of my early twenties, had already had a few gay friends, but I’m talking BEST friends, like people that I met day 1 of college and have been there since.
It was weird for a day, and then, it wasn’t. Most of my friends being male, I became a quick fan of Nellie’s, grew a group of friends called “daddies,” and learned the art of distancing myself from a circle of (gay) men while trying to find a (ideally) heterosexual man for myself. I quickly gained friends who could simultaneously bake cookies, gossip about the Barefoot Contessa, all the while talking about man meat (his name is Drake and he writes on this blog).
I suppose this is somewhat of a blessing for our generation; unlike our parents and our grandparents, it’s likely that we have one, if not a few, gay friends (or you, yourself, are gay). I’d like to think that this is that thing they call “progress,” that today’s society is a bit more open and accepting than that of the past.
Browsing on my Facebook newsfeed recently I came across a post from someone I went to college with about their support for “traditional marriage.” Coming from a conservative Catholic university, those comments are bound to show their faces periodically. I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school my entire life. We believed in mass each Sunday, no meat on Fridays in Lent, a 4 hour Easter vigil mass, and (much to my dismay) a regular amount of volunteering via our kitchen becoming a meatloaf factory for Aide for Friends. I thought Catholicism was normal simply because my parents reinforced the ideas of individual spirituality, volunteering, and accepting others, and I thought these were good.
I support the church as a form of spirituality, but still have my fair share of disappointment in some of its progression, or lack there of. We are all aware of the (obvious) conservatism that comes from the church. And oftentimes, like that of this anonymous Facebook poster, it is those who are so wrapped up in the church and the idea of “traditional marriage,” that do just as what we, as those of faith, are told not to do: condemn. Have you, those so enamored in traditional church, forgotten the core value of our religion’s teaching? Or the fact that Jesus was a social justice badass who encouraged us to accept others, regardless of their differences? Don’t you have a friend that’s gay? Haven’t we…kinda grown up with it? What exactly are the terrible things that would happen if we allowed everyone to marry?
It feels so archaic, so backwards, so …hurtful.
I support gay marriage not because it’s trendy or simply because I have gay friends, but because I witness gay relationships and guess what? They’re normal. And gay men and women deserve more than your dinosaur-age sign that only shows one male and one female. And if you follow the (ancient) Bible so vigorously, ladies, are you still subordinate to your husband? Talk to me about those marriage rights too.
But when it comes down to it, I support gay marriage because in my Catholic faith, I was taught that I shouldn’t look my best friend in the eye and tell them that I deserve more than they do.
