Outside New York, five states, along with Washington, DC, already permit same-sex marriages. Twenty-one states, along with DC, outlaw anti-gay discrimination. And both numbers will grow. This issue will increasingly transcend partisan politics and hinge less on party affiliation or archaic religious doctrine than on the intimate, everyday dynamics of family and friendship.
As Michael Barbaro and Nicholas Confessore have reported in The New York Times, the biggest and most influential donors to the New York campaign were Republicans. A New York mayor without any huge strategic stake in the matter devoted considerable money and muscle to it. And public-service announcements in favour of it were recorded not just by actors and artists but also by athletes such as the hockey player Sean Avery, and by the city's former police commissioner William Bratton.
Why such widespread backing from such surprising quarters? One major reason is that the wish and push to be married cast gay men and lesbians in the most benign, conservative light imaginable, not as enemies of tradition but as aspirants to it. In the quest for integration, saying ''I do'' is much more effective - not to mention more reflective of the way most gay people live - than strutting in leather on a parade float. We're not trying to undermine the institution of marriage, a task ably handled by the likes of Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards and too many other one-time role models to mention. We're paying it an enormous compliment.
But an even bigger reason is how common it now is for Americans to realise that they know and love people who are gay. AIDS had a lot to do with that. This month is the 30th anniversary of the disease's emergence. If we wanted people to take up arms against a scourge associated primarily with gay men, we had to make them appreciate how many gay men they were close to.
Over the past quarter-century the love that dared not speak its name turned into a veritable motor mouth, to a point where the average American, an astonishing Gallup Poll last month showed, thinks that about 25 per cent of the population is homosexual. Hardly. But that perception underscores how visible gay people have become. And familiarity changes everything.
Same-sex marriage is personal for the Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, whose longtime companion, Sandra Lee, has a gay brother. It is personal for Paul Singer, the most impassioned of the Republican donors. At a fund-raiser for same-sex marriage last year, he recalled leafing through the wedding album of ''my son and son-in-law'', married in Massachusetts.
It is personal for the New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser, who on Monday wrote, ''I give in.'' She recounted the recent Massachusetts wedding of her niece and another woman and said: ''Despite abstract discomfort over normalising gay unions, I don't know of a soul who would discriminate against the nice guys next door. Nor would I deny my niece happiness that is evident in the size of her smile.''
In voicing his support for same-sex marriage, the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has mentioned - and appeared with - his niece Rachel, who is lesbian.
To reckon with the gay people right in front of you is to re-examine your qualms. I have seen that in my father, a 76-year-old Republican.
Years ago he would quietly leave the room whenever my sexual orientation came up in a family conversation. But when he urged me to attend a Halloween party he gave for his friends last year, he insisted I bring Tom, whom he has come to know well over the 2½ years we've been together. And as he introduced us to his golf partners from the country club, he said, ''This is my son, Frank. And this is my other son, Tom. Or at least I think of him that way.''
Only once did he look unsettled: when he realised he had not run that language by Tom. ''I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?'' he asked him.
I called dad the other day to get his permission to share that story. I also brought up something else - for the first time.
''Do you support gay marriage?'' I asked him. ''I don't know,'' he said, explaining that it still seemed strange. He added: ''But not if you know the person.''
''Meaning me?'' I said.
''No,'' he said. ''I mean Tom. He's a good person. If you and he got married? I guess that would be OK. Yeah, that would be fine.''
Frank Bruni is The New York Times's newest and first openly gay columnist. This is his first column.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/its-hard-to-deny-a-good-friend-or-relative-the-right-to-get-hitched-20110626-1glko.html#ixzz1QRvOIkde
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