I recall Bill O'Reilly's reaction to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's rogue legalization of gay marriage in the city in 2004. He likened this independent effort to take action into the hands of a heavily homo-populated city as a severe slippery slope that would of course end in the legalization of beastiality. Well, fuck Bill, why the hell wouldn't it?

More recently (November 2008) he can be quoted saying:
"Gay marriage just the beginning. Other cultural war issues will also be in display very shortly. These include limiting gun possession, legalizing narcotics, unrestricted abortion and the revocation of the Patriot Act."

Shortly after this was said, proposition 8 banned gay marriage in California.

But I digress, we must examine the chunky and discolored stream of logic that O'Reilly pissed out. I use O'Reilly only as an example because his quotation above was extremely convenient. By no means is he the only mouthpiece that has done this. As you and I well know, he is a megaphone for America and much of America digests and ultimately agrees with his thoughts. He believes that gay marriage would impact narcotics, gun possession, and patriot act legislation because it's part of a grouped and standardized liberal agenda, not because it has a fucking thing to do with civil liberties and equality. Painting as related makes it less palatable. Lumping pure equality in with items that are legitimately executive and legislative brand issues is flat out fucking bullshit. It is a lie designed to mold thoughts of constituents.

Then when a real life example of such discrimination comes to punch us in the jowls, we ignore it. This week a Japanese man married his girlfriend, who exists only in a video game, in a church in Guam.

So, pause. Digest this. In Guam...

Man + video game = legal marriage

Man + Man = not legal marriage

Woman + Woman = not legal marriage

But, ugh, men and women are people. They have a real relationship. Love grows and prospers and they can buy a house and stuff...and have a joint banking account and...go to the doctor and get their blood drawn and...THEY'RE PEOPLE! Should they not be extended the same rights that a video game character apparently fucking has?

I suppose what's more important isn't what's legal in Guam, but what it is that causes a ruckus. This video game character marriage situation didn't cause much of an uproar. The broadcast of this information seems to have been met with a collective eye-roll, regardless of religious or political affiliation. Nobody thought much of it, it was some idiot who has no grasp on reality continuing to play his silly game. Oh boys will be boys!

However, when gay marriage was legalized in the Netherlands in 2001 (the first country to do so), all hell broke loose in America. O'Reilly started talking about polygamy and beastiality, Westboro Baptist Church stated running around with signs proclaiming how they hated fags. It got even worse when Gavin Newsom went balls-out activist on us all and legalized gay marriage in San Francisco.

Everybody cooed and circle jerked when Madonna, Britney, and Christina Aquilera made out on stage at the VMAs a few years ago. This year, when Adam Lambert made out with his band's keyboard player and he simulated face fucking a few other band members and dancers, everybody lost it. Media discriminated against him and other media outlets stood up for him.

I ask the question: What's with the hatred of gay men? What is it that they do that so offends most of America? Their appearance and acceptability seems to be entirely conditional. When they are a single woman's only friend, they are completely acceptable and lovable, like a side kick. When they lead, ask for equality, and exude their sexuality, it becomes disgusting to the loud-mouthed dissenters of homosexuality.

Male sexuality is far more overt, hetero or homo, than women's sexuality. Male sexuality has routinely defined cultures and nations, whether we like it or not. Marking male sexuality that is different from the norm creates an upset, an ebb in a placid lake. Many of us see this as "ok cool, let's move on" while others are completely stuck on it. Those that are stuck are not transitory. Who they are is defined entirely by where they are. They are in a white, hetero, male founded nation. They exist in a nation that has never really extolled change beyond its creation. As the United States shakes things up internally, we will be forced to accept other changes. Families that have lived in the same city for generations will be forced to move to find jobs. They will discover that they do not own assimilation, but that assimilation is completely malleable. As the bigots learn how hard it is to be accepted, they will become the acceptors.