GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

Seattle is in an uproar over the question of public displays of same-sex affection. The situation raises larger issues important to the same-sex marriage debate. At a May 26 Mariners game, Sirbrina Guerrero and her girlfriend were told by an usher that a mother was complaining that their repeated kissing was confusing her young son. The usher asked them to stop. A Mariners investigation later found (though this is disputed) that the couple had been “making out” and “groping” each other – not just an affectionate peck on the cheek.

The controversy outraged the openly gay editor of Seattle’s alternative weekly The Stranger, Dan Savage. He wrote:

Sorry, mom, but if straight people can kiss on the lips at Safeco, so can we…. You’re going to have to tell your kids about the existence of gays and lesbians sometime—and if you want to avoid that conversation for as long as possible, don’t leave the house, turn off the TV, throw out the radio, and close the blinds.

Savage, who has called me a “self-hating douchebag” for dissenting from the gay community’s attack on man-woman marriage, called for a same-sex “kiss-in” at the ballpark.

Can I suggest that a “kiss-in” is exactly the opposite of an appropriate response to this situation? The gay and lesbian movement, particularly with regard to marriage, has been arguing until it is blue in the face that it only wants to obtain rights for same-sex couples, and poses no threat to any heterosexual family. Well, doesn’t it threaten heterosexual families to prevent them from deciding for themselves when and how to introduce the topic of homosexuality?

I mean, Savage’s suggestion that parents who prefer to teach about gay couples at, say, age eight instead of age three shouldn’t leave the house is hardly a practical suggestion. If anyone should stay in their houses, it should be people who want to express modes of affection that if done in public are likely to interfere with other people’s parenting rights.

Even normally modest and conservative gays have expressed this attitude. A friend of mine who fits that description once complained that when he held his date’s hand in a major Midwestern city, some parents turned their children away. Who is he to determine at what age a father teaches his own daughter about homosexuality? It’s not like the parents called him names or demanded he let go of his date’s hand. They simply made sure their children wouldn’t see his behavior.

I mean, seriously, with all the problems facing gays and lesbians in America, is the freedom to smooch at the ballgame and hold hands in the park really that big of a deal? I don’t think anyone, including me, wants to outlaw same-sex displays of affection. But it sure would be nice if my fellow gays and lesbians would use some tact and discretion in not constantly shoving their sexuality in everyone’s face. You want to kiss your lesbian lover in public? That’s what Gay Pride Day is for. Or you can go to the Castro or West Hollywood. In other times and places, please have some humility and realize that we’re a diverse society and most parents want to make their own decisions about how to introduce their children to the gay subculture.

The militance of gays and lesbians on the subject of public displays of affection suggests that the marriage debate isn’t really about the right of a same-sex partner to inherit custody of children or to visit a loved one in the hospital. If it was, domestic partnerships would be a good solution. This is a much larger battle over what kind of society we’re going to live in. Groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network are already working with gay-friendly teachers in public schools to introduce lessons about homosexuality to children as young as kindergarten. Shouldn’t parents get the right to decide when and how their young children will learn about homosexuality, rather than gay activists?

Some gays and lesbians have been up front about the fact that they’re not just looking to gain rights for themselves. Mark, a GaysDefendMarriage.com reader put it this way: “it’s a zero-sum game – for gay people to achieve full civil rights, traditionally religious people have to lose. I intend for them to lose pretty much totally.” Now, it so happens I am open to finding compromises with marriage-equality advocates that will provide protections for same-sex couples in distress nationwide. But if Mark is right, and I have to choose between no rights for gay couples and a culture in which marriage is redefined and parents have no control over what their young children learn about sexuality, I will regretfully choose “no rights for gay couples.” Given that far more Americans agree with me on what marriage is, and whether parents should be in charge of when children learn about homosexuality, it’s just not smart politics for LGBT people to insist that whoever loses this debate will lose totally.