A Case For the Opposition, daaaahhhling!

(Reposted from an article first written in 2004)


Some of my best friends are: (Black)(Gay)(Jewish)(Lesbian)(Chinese)(Indian)(Rabbits).

Please delete as appropriate according to how you’ve used it. And you have used it. Be honest.

It’s a caveat. And as a such it’s usually preceded with, “I’m not fascist/homophobic” and more often not followed with, “But….”

As a casual armchair anthropologist I am a big fan of the caveat. See caveats, on utterance, immediately reveal more about the caveat’s antonym than what the speaker is trying to qualify. “Some of my best friends are black,” usually means my plumber is black and that’s the only reason I let him in my house. “Some of my best friends are gay,” is a subtext for there’s a queen at work and he’s good for a camp comment but I get nervous if we’re in the bathroom together.

And herein lies my problem. Some of my best friends are gay. So it’s this very reason that gay marriage puts the fear of god in me.

Now before I send my liberal friends into apoplexy and send my conservative ones into elation (I didn’t know he was one of us, I hear them cry) - it’s no caveat – some of my best friends ARE gay. I’ve been around gay boys for as long as I can remember. From the un-outed ones at school who shared my disdain of sports on cold days to my current ones who share my cultural snobbery - gay company isn’t so much as tolerated but enthusiastically sought. If there’s a straight male fag hag then I qualify. I’m the original metro sexual.

The UK’s Sunday Times columnist AA Gill put it best. Would you rather queue for Streisand tickets than Motorhead? He asked. YES. Will you willingly shop for you’re your girlfriends new Blahniks let alone know what Blahnks are? YES. Does the mere sight of your male friends wearing trousers without a belt send you into histrionics? YES YES YES. Then, he proposed, you are the gayest straight man. This I am. (My girlfriend would contend that I’m the straightest gay man – but that’s another story.) I’m an out and proud straight gay man with an address book chock full of friends of Dorothy. Whoop de doo.

Thus my aforementioned conservative friends would conclude that with this specialist insight it must be my knowledge of gay lifestyle that raises my heckles at the prospect of homosexual union. Oh no, such is not the case. More of the single sex couples I know are in more committed relationships than the straight ones. And, as a an old fashioned romantic who secretly longs for the sanctity of marriage preserved, I fail to understand why the church doesn’t swing open it’s doors and book the village people themselves for our gay brethren. Just think of the rise in business.

No it’s a lot less moralistic than that.

I simply can’t afford it. Some of my best friends are gay, and as they clamber over each other to get to the altar my time will be sucked up with gift buying, suit selecting, cake schlepping and all the other trappings couples ‘guilt’ you with in the run up to the big day. We refer to our female friends before the wedding as Bridezilla – the thought of weeks of Fagzilla doesn’t even compare. When straight friends don’t like the gift, they politely tuck into the bottom draw or, and I have genuinely seen this, hawk it on Ebay. Imagine the grief when my taste lacks for my gay friends! Oh lordy.

As you age and become more independent, your elders warn you of the income pressures to come – pensions, school fees, mortgages, taxes, death duties etc. I curse them for keeping secret the whole engagement, marriage, baby drain. I have learnt the hard way, you have to plan for this. From age 25 to 45 and beyond you face this endless march from homeware to toddler shop. The girl who keeps Macy’s “list” probably knows me by name now. If she doesn’t she should and put me on her Christmas list– I’m putting her kids through college for chrissakes.

At least my straight friends give you a years notice for the hitching. As America enters the debate on gay union and States independently draw back the prejudicial and unconstitutional shackles that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, my gay friends have been slipping rings on fingers quicker than Tiffany’s can cope with. No notice, no slow progression, nothing. I didn’t plan for this. I had no idea. I avoid the phone for fear of the, “We’ve got something to tell you” announcement. I’m gonna be broke, destitute and exhausted.

So for this selfish and protective reason I declare my opposition to gay marriage. So go on Mr Bush change the constitution if that’s what you have to do.

I never thought I would ever say this. Some of best friends are Bushes.