Instead of getting into a debate about gay marriage, let’s take a moment to examine what the debate raging across America tells us about the status of gays and lesbians.

First, let’s make sure when we’re talking about gay marriage, we’re talking about the same thing. The NLGA primer defines it as … okay, just check out the primer.
The highlights: “Advocates for the right to marry seek the legal rights and obligations of marriage, not a variation of it.” Gays and lesbians who want to marry want to be seen as equal participants in society – not variations.    

On to the debate. Gay marriage was supposed to be ultra-divisive. Many on the left predicted it would jeopardize Democrats’ chance at the White House. A few on the right proposed a Constitutional amendment to ban the marriages, an amendment that’s about to come up for Congressional debate.

Back to my original question: What does the debate – in this case, opposition to gay marriage – say about American attitudes toward gays and lesbians? Does it mean Americans oppose equal participation and rights for members of the gay community? The same CNN/USAToday/Gallup survey that found increased support for the anti-gay marriage amendment in May also found “A modest increase in the number of Americans who support giving gay couples some (my emphasis) of the legal rights that heterosexual couples enjoy.”

Moderates are leaning toward granting gays and lesbians “some” as opposed to “all” rights. So many on the left hail gay marriage as a victory. They celebrated ceremonies in San Francisco and Cambridge even as Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney commandeered marriage licenses and threatened clerks. Yeah, yeah, it’s emotional, a triumph of visibility, especially for older couples who have endured decades of bigotry.
        
No one may respect them the morning after, but on their wedding day, they can be happy. Which is fine, if you belong to the school that says it doesn’t matter what the rest of the country thinks/says, or as The Village Voice newlywed Richard Goldstein says, “You can have your wedding cake and eat it, too. Marriage is what you make of it, not what it makes of you.”

But of course it matters. And that’s why I think this debate is so telling. Because gay marriage came out of the closet in 2004, 35 years after Stonewall, and America is shocked. America doesn’t know what to do. Unless gays and lesbians have money, look straight, and tread softly, they cannot live the good life. So far, the wedding debate only underlines how little we’ve changed. What Carl Wittman argued in his 1971 “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto” is still true: ”The system we’re under now is a direct oppression and it’s not a question of getting our share of the pie. The pie is rotten.”

In The Fray Contributor