Commentary: The 'Real' New Gay Marriage

Link: Gay Wired
by Ross von Metzke

Love it or hate it, the New York Times Sunday magazine article, "Young Gay Rites," has engendered much thoughtful comment.

Excerpt:

I always joke with friends that I was a divorcee at 24.

Gay marriage isn’t legal in California—and, truth be told, there was no custody dispute over pets, no divvying up of furniture. We didn’t even live together… next door to each other, actually, because I always joked my dream home would be hacienda style—my wing, his wing and a courtyard for us to co-mingle.

But for three years, every birthday, vacation, movie night and family function was spent together. When Alan broke his knee, I shuttled him back and forth to physical therapy appointments for three months. When my friend Charles went MIA for 28 hours after the twin towers fell in Manhattan, he sat on the phone every hour on the hour while I worked, trying to get through to someone who might know how he was doing.

Ours was a real partnership—a monogamous partnership, I should add, which is a rarity for gay men in their early 20s. And at some point, admittedly, it became a partnership that failed—whether it was my resentment over staying in San Diego for him or his frustration that living next door to each other just didn’t cut it anymore, I’ll never know.

But we parted friends—amicably and with a hug—and to this day, I can safely say my ex and I have a better relationship than most former couples I know.

And now that I have a new boyfriend, I’d like to think I learned a few things the first time around. No marriage yet, we’re still in the early stages. But between nights of take out and a movie, me helping him shop for a car and him giving me advice on eliminating my credit card debt by the end of the year, we’re definitely past the honeymoon phase—and unlike couples who use that to suggest the romance has died, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean it in the best possible way.

What we aren’t, however, is Norman fucking Rockwell… we’re not Ivy League, bucking for country club membership or any other idealistic relationship stereotype—which is probably what bothered me so much about a recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine, documenting what writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis dubs “the new gay marriage.”

[...]

I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness—that would be far too cynical of me. And there is truth in the saying that “every relationship is different.”

But in the fundamental building blocks of what it takes to make a relationship work, no amount of face paint or photo shopping for one of the nation’s best respected news sources changes the fact that relationships take work—and at least through the images and the bulk of the couples profiled here, that seems to be the one thing nobody wants to stop and think about.

Gay couples want to be treated like everyone else, but that doesn’t mean we want to assimilate—especially to a version of marriage that went out with Leave it to Beaver and Quaaludes. Painting the picture that gay is great for all of America to see isn’t normal—it’s stereotypical, with the dinner parties and the blatant disregard for a dose of reality. And haven’t we endured the stereotypes long enough?

For a better representation of a gay wedding, try watching Brothers & Sisters, where the subject of gay marriage was brought up because one half of the Scotty/Kevin power couple doesn’t have health insurance. Those are real issues facing gay couples—not which argyle sweater goes best with the patio furniture.

Nice try, bad execution. For now, it might not make for a priceless photo op, but I'm perfectly content balancing video night with evenings out at the bars with our friends.

Squabbling and bickering included.

[jw]