My wife’s birthday was June 19, and on that same day a handful of people assembled in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, D. C., to celebrate. Coincidence? Well, yes. But also, no.
Let’s be clear: They weren’t really celebrating anything — especially not my wife’s birthday — though I am sure many of them thought they were “celebrating” traditional marriage in some crazy kind of way. They were, in a way, protesting my wife’s birthday, since they would argue that I shouldn’t have a wife to begin with, and she shouldn’t be some kind of sexual deviant. Oh, and we have a son, which undoubtedly would give them conniptions too.
The event was the National Organization for Marriage’s second annual March for Marriage. This sorry excuse for a march attracted approximately 1,500-2,000 people, which is less than last year’s march.
Speakers at the rally included some notable past Creeps like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. In other words, same creeps, same story. No wonder so few people showed up.
It’s pretty clear that the fight for marriage equality is winning, and the folks at NOM are trying to change tactics. A little bit, at least. After years of being rabidly antigay, they now claim that they aren’t anti-anybody. They’re just pro-marriage: traditional, one penis + one vagina marriage, that is.
Which is total bullshit. You can’t be against marriage for gay people without being against gay people because marriage doesn’t exist without people, and the only people they don’t want to marry are gay people. Therefore, antigay.
You don’t have to look further than photos of march participants to see that not everybody has gotten the “we’re not antigay” message.
The Advocate posted a photo of an old white dude holding a sign that read: “Gay sex leads to adult diapers! Open door syndrome!” Not sure how that message is “pro-marriage,” but thanks for the disgusting, and totally factually inaccurate, image.
Another protester wore a Barack Obama mask (or at least I think that’s what it was supposed to be) and paraded around with a sign that read, “Gay Marriage is Satanic.” I’m guessing this marcher probably thinks Obama is the anti-Christ, because only the anti-Christ would allow a couple of dudes to say “I do.”
There were also plenty of signs about children deserving a mom and a dad, which is a favorite talking point of antigay conservatives. Two stable, loving parents are better than one (not to knock single moms and dads, many of whom are doing a great job, but raising a kid is fucking hard and having a good partner to do it with goes a long way). But unless you’re stuck in a 1950s strictly delineated gender-role fantasy, it actually doesn’t matter if you’ve got two mommies or two daddies. What matters is that you have parents who aren’t assholes. And, let’s face it, plenty of parents are assholes. But NOM seems more interested in making sure the chromosomes of the parents line up right rather than making sure kids are loved and provided for.
According to the Huffington Post, a 12-year-old brought to the rally by her grandfather was none too thrilled to be there.
“It’s stupid,” the girl, Jordan, told HuffPo. “If two people feel a certain way about each other, then why shouldn’t they get married? They shouldn’t judge other people because of how they feel.”
Amen to that.
I’ll be curious to see what next year’s March for Marriage looks like. It’s supposed to be annual, but the fire behind the anti-gay-marriage movement is dwindling. Maybe they won’t even bother having it at all. Or it’ll just be Huckabee and Santorum huddled under a tarp together, shouting at passersby about the end times and gay sex.
And I hope Jordan is there. And that she gives them the finger.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock and roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister and teaches writing at the University of Michigan.