How do you
describe what it feels like when you wake up for the first
time? That is how The Advocate's arts and
entertainment editor, Corey
Scholibo, felt as he protested the passing of
Proposition 8 at the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles on
Thursday. Formerly a cynic when it came to the marriage
fight, Scholibo now sees this moment as the first time
his complacent generation got a real taste of the
fight for our rights and thinks it may have been
just what they needed.
Like most gay
Americans I felt my whole life that being discriminated
against was a matter of fact. You could call it apathy or
you could call it patience, but I was aware that we
were not equal, and it was not nagging at me nor
keeping me awake at night. Perhaps it is because I work
in the media and have watched as representations of our
lives have slowly -- but, mind you, surely
-- changed people’s minds. But I had also
unwittingly denied myself a lot of things. I never wanted to
get married, and when the marriage fight became the
central focus of the LGBT movement, I was not 100%
sold. While I felt that anyone who wanted to get
married should have the fundamental right to do so, I
didn’t feel that this was where our efforts
were best spent. I rejected the argument that gay
people are just like everyone else. In fact, I was
celebrating the very things that made us so different
from everyone else, that had allowed us to question
what monogamy was, what marriage was, what the nuclear
family ideal added up to.
I was shocked,
truly shocked, when the California supreme court ruled in
favor of us in May. I never expected it to happen. I was
elated when it did come to pass, but as I watched
everyone get married all around me, my first reaction
was cynicism. I thought, How interesting that so many
people have fought so hard to be like the rest of
America. I thought, Is my relationship now
going to be judged by these newly married gay
Americans? and for the first time experienced a mother
asking if marriage was in my future. I went to all my
friends’ weddings, and though I was jealous of
the happiness they found, I was not jealous of their
entering an institution with all these rules and
regulations, so much cultural baggage of who you were
as identified by that title: married. Even as I
entered a long-term relationship with someone who I knew was
my complete other half, I didn’t generally
think that we would one day get married, and if I did,
I thought about it in the abstract, far, far in the
distance and certainly not as something of critical
importance.
But as cynical as
I was, I was sure the battle over marriage was over. I
was sure that after that ruling this could not be taken away
from us. And now I think it is safe to say a lot of
other Californians did too. We saw Ellen and Portia on
the cover of People magazine. We watched
thousands of other couples marry. We saw the polls tipping
in our favor on this issue. Hell, even Kevin and
Scotty were wed on the season finale of Brothers
& Sisters. This was an issue whose time had
come, and for those for whom it was important, I
thought they were finally secure.
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