Dear Readers: Occasionally Ms. Behavior learns something that she is compelled to share with her readers, before she even gets a letter asking about it. However, if there were a question leading to this response, perhaps it would be, “What are the 10 essential ingredients to a happy marriage?” While that topic is too cumbersome to address in one column, Ms. Behavior may consider a series on this topic. Meanwhile, she would like to extol the virtues of a pocket-sized marital aid she discovered recently. Ms. Behavior was, perhaps, late to this discovery. Much to her dismay, Ms. Behavior learned that her mother, Bubbles, had one first, though she hadn’t yet figured out how to work it. (Ms. B. did not offer to help because she finds life more manageable when Bubbles is trained in technical matters by her dates or her doormen.)
Who in their right mind is purchasing marital aids right now? You can light candles and pick flowers and watch erotica for free. Live theaters practically beg you to buy seats for barely more than the price of a movie. This blessed item, however, costs approximately $200, which Ms. Behavior was reluctant to spend because her current priority is organic hair products and vegetables. But luckily, Ms. Behavior’s wife received this item as a gift.
Is it an exaggeration to refer to a global-positioning system as a marital aid? No. Plug it into your car lighter, punch in your destination and the soothing female voice tells you just how to get where you’re going. You’re released from the job of directing your partner. She doesn’t call you names in a confusing city. Wrong turns are no problem; you don’t have to pull over and re-map your route if you make a mistake. Hours formerly wasted on fighting can now be spent on love and kindness. “The lady” inside the GPS machine says, “Recalculating!” and you continue on your way. So, yes, count this as the first in Ms. Behavior’s list of ingredients for marital bliss.
Some may ask, “Why the inclusion of a GPS in a column geared toward LGBT advice?” Simply because: a) this issue falls under the category of relationship advice, and b) any item Ms. Behavior touches is a gay item.
Dear Ms. Behavior:
My boyfriend Steve, a staunch defender of LGBT rights, read a few recent arguments in favor of civil unions. Now Steve says he would accept civil unions as a substitute for gay marriage; this is shocking because he was furious at his parents after they argued this point a couple of years back. I fear we’re losing ground on this issue if Steve can be swayed to the other side. What do you think about civil union as a substitute for gay marriage? — Martin
Dear Martin:
Ms. Behavior believes that a civil union is a consolation prize, much like being offered a seat in the middle of the bus: There’s the sense of being relegated to a specific section, without the privileges conveyed to those in the front.
Advocates for federally recognized civil unions claim they would offer “all or most” of the benefits of marriage. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times (Feb. 22), the authors proposed that a condition be passed along with the same bill, ensuring that Washington would recognize “only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions.” This means religious organizations would be “protected” from having to recognize same-sex unions, sparing them from having to host same-sex celebrations on their properties or from having to offer healthcare benefits to spouses of their gay or lesbian employees.
A gay wedding could obviously be any church’s worst nightmare: Just imagine a gaggle of butt-loving nellies on their lawn, bumping and grinding in nuptial celebration.
It’s easy to get distracted by the religious issue, but the bigger problem is that civil unions are not marriage. Would it be wrongheaded to settle for something that doesn’t create equal cultural recognition? Would a halfway measure bring us incrementally closer to the right to marry or would it be a resting place so “acceptable” that we’d never finish the journey? Ms. Behavior believes we should hold out for the real thing.
Meryl Cohn is the author of “‘Do What I Say’: Ms. Behavior’s Guide to Gay and Lesbian Etiquette” (Houghton Mifflin). E-mail her at [email protected] or visit www.msbehavior.com.