If Gay Marriage Was Legalized

Contents:

• GAY PEOPLE WHO WERE IN HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAG ARE SHARG THEIR STORI, AND THEY WERE INCREDIBLY HONT
• GAY PEOPLE WHO CAME OUT AFTER BEG IN HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAG, WHAT IS YOUR STORY?
• IF GAY MARRIAGE WAS LEGALIZED
• GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE REVERSAL MEANS CASH FOR OBAMA
• LISTEN TO THE SPEECH A REPUBLIN LAWMAKER GAVE AT HIS GAY SON’S WEDDG DAYS AFTER VOTG AGAST MARRIAGE EQUALY
• THE GAY NEPHEW OF THE LAWMAKER WHO CRIED WHILE VOTG AGAST MARRIAGE EQUALY HAS A MSAGE FOR HER
• BUZZFEED SHAM POPULAR HGTV STARS FOR ATTENDG ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE CHURCH
• IN SECRET DOCUMENTS, ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE GROUP LOOKED TO DIVI GAYS, BLACKS
• BUZZFEED AND LATE CAPALIST DENCE; OR, GAY MARRIAGE IS FALSE CONSCNS PART 454

GAY PEOPLE WHO WERE IN HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAG ARE SHARG THEIR STORI, AND THEY WERE INCREDIBLY HONT

We recently asked the gay members of the BuzzFeed Communy to share their stori about g out after they'd been a heterosexual marriage. "I knew I was gay, but where I grew up was not OK to be gay, so I hid my imagary closet too sred to e out for fear that I would be beaten up and rejected. I got sober and started EMDR therapy and eventually me to terms that my sexualy was the reason for a lot of drkg, anger, and ternalized homophobia.

GAY PEOPLE WHO CAME OUT AFTER BEG IN HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAG, WHAT IS YOUR STORY?

I ed to try and hi as a kid bee I didn’t know anyone else who had a gay parent, but now I see how fortunate I am to have divorced parents who lgh and joke and enjoy each other's pany whout any bterns or jealoy. If you me out as gay durg or after you were a heterosexual marriage, tell your story (or e this Google Form if you want to be anonymo). I am always very flattered when gay men e up to me and talk to me about The Devil Wears Prada or they talk about Supernova, and they say that 'It was jt so betiful, ' you know, 'You did the right way.

It uld even be an orr om a state executive allowg anyone ernment wh a relig objectn the right to refe to work on a same-sex ’s say we’re Texas, for no other reason than the ernor there has already been targetg the LGBTQ muny and the state attorney general has exprsed an tert fendg a law agast sodomy — not to mentn the state Republin Party, whose members ntrol every level of ernment, officially adoptg a platform last month that lls homosexualy an "abnormal liftyle choice. Outdated anti-gay language about people preyg on children or groomg them has bee accepted among proment rg-wg figur as they lnch legislative and polil asslts, pecially agast the transgenr Obergefell fall and the patchwork of state bans on marriage for same-sex upl sudnly be rurrected, as was the se wh so-lled abortn trigger laws after Dobbs, the prospect of tryg to return to a protracted and expensive mpaign to try to flip stat one by one such a toxic polil environment is horrifyg, said Fran Hutchs, executive director of the Equaly Feratn.

Morator Jake Tapper asked Buttigieg, who had served as the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, durg now-vice print Mike Pence’s tenure as the state’s ernor, whether Pence would make a better print than Donald Tmp. In his answer, Buttigieg took the assumptns the evangelil right often mak about gay people — that we’re nnivg, amoral perverts — and ftly redirected them toward Pence, who has an extensive anti-LGBTQ rerd, seemgly “stopped believg scripture when he started believg Donald Tmp, ” the mayor med, makg clear that his own terpretatn of the Bible is very different than Pence’s: “It’s about protectg the stranger and the prisoner and the poor person … and his has a lot more to do wh sexualy and a certa view of rectu.

IF GAY MARRIAGE WAS LEGALIZED

But at the same time, unsettled me that Buttigieg’s cricism of the vice print didn’t foc directly on the vastatg effects that anti-LGBTQ polici n have on the liv of gay people. Rather, Mayor Pete took the opportuny to make that se that he’s a better Pence than Pence is: a better Christian, a better fay member, a better me, and to a lot of other gay progrsiv — om ACT UP activists to the queer wg of the DSA — that moment March ma sudnly and disappotgly clear that Buttigieg’s rise was ma possible by a gay civil rights movement that has foced above all else on marriage equaly and assiatg LGBTQ people to the mastream. In general, Buttigieg mak the se that gay people like him, and like me, serve to belong — our fai, our church, and our muni — jt as much as straight people do.

But they — we — are clearly a mory wh a mastream gay rights movement, which claims marriage equaly as s crowng achievement, has meanwhile pivoted toward promotg workplace protectns for LGBTQ employe while ntug to traffic reprentatn polics. But as monumental as a Buttigieg princy would be for gay visibily — and would ed be monumental — his w would also be a nstant remr of how much the gay rights movement had to give up orr to make this far. I’ve spoken wh many gay men who thought an openly gay ndidate would never have a ser shot at the princy their lifetim, let alone four years after the Supreme Court marriage equaly cisn, and seeg Buttigieg thrive — regardls of whether they’d actually vote for him the primari — has moved some of them to tears.

“He is, que simply, ” Andrew Sullivan wrote April, “what many of my generatn of gays fought for and rarely believed uld happen.

GAY MARRIAGE

”But ’s hard for me not to take a more cynil view of the way Buttigieg’s mpaign has packaged the world’s most straight-palatable gay narrative: He is a practicg Christian who, acrdg to an op-ed he wrote 2015 for the South Bend Tribune, believ beg gay is no more signifint an inty marker than “havg brown hair, ” and who is safely and monogamoly partnered wh the first guy he ever dated (whom, he’d like you to know, he met on Hge — not Grdr).

Buttigieg don’t have to ntend wh the implitn of a seedy gay past or prent; he’s already fulfilled the gay assiatnist dream of marriage, the whe picket fence, and a uple of rcue dogs. There’s nothg wrong wh marriage and monogamy (or rcue dogs, pecially); Buttigieg is no ls gay for his choic than your typil y-attendg, polyamoro Brooklyn bottom queen is for theirs.

GAY MARRIAGE REVERSAL MEANS CASH FOR OBAMA

So I unrstand why some queer criqu of Buttigieg foced on his “wonr boy” perfectn or his buttoned-up fay man affect — like the July New Republic say by thor, cric, and ACT UP activist Dale Peck on his “Mayor Pete Problem, ” which the se end up unpublishg after a wave of public outcry nmned as a “homophobic h piece” — have raised his supporters’ pecially when the crique is g om another gay person, I do thk ’s important to distguish between anti-gay rhetoric and all-purpose snark — or eply felt grievance. Jezebel’s Rich Juzwiak poted out that Peck, rather than simply reexamg the symbolic value of any gay man nng for print, was “probg what actually means for this particular gay man to be a ser printial ndidate. ” And this particular ndidate, to Peck and a lot of radil queer activists, has happily set asi the loftier ials of a former generatn nearly cimated by the AIDS crisis favor of playg the nice, well-behaved gay man who’s choosg nventn over revolutn.

Some of Buttigieg’s supporters have actually weaponized his sexualy, too, g cri of anti-gay prejudice to turn around and discrimate agast other groups, like spreadg the sid and racist lie that homophobia is the reason Buttigieg is flounrg wh black some whe gay men would like to prove they’re no different than your average married straight bro — that they believe “fay valu” too! In dog so, he’s layg out a very public roadmap for gay succs at the natnal level, which all likelihood wouldn’t be possible whout the assiatnist activism of the marriage equaly movement. I didn’t know then that Pete was a Democratic Party darlg and an Obama protegee; at the time, he was only another gay guy, a fellow lennial, a person I’d bumped to at a party.

Some of his plans, like llg for the "begng of the end of AIDS, " are distctive that they bear the weight of his own personal experienc: as a gay man, he's currently unable to donate blood bee of outdated "ignorance and bigotry. Thrasher pots out that an unfortunate historil turn the gay rights movement was the pivot om advotg for universal health re to the ls amb goal of expand private health surance accs through same-sex marriage, which has left gapg cracks the system. And whether he’d be better for LGBTQ rights than an actual gay person isn’t easy for the mastream LGBTQ rights movement to nsir, bee of how eply the movement has bee ensnced dividual reprentatn polics.

LISTEN TO THE SPEECH A REPUBLIN LAWMAKER GAVE AT HIS GAY SON’S WEDDG DAYS AFTER VOTG AGAST MARRIAGE EQUALY

If you thk GLAAD-style visibily is everythg — or that the fight for gay rights end wh marriage equaly — how uld you rist the opportuny to elect Pete Buttigieg? ” But were he to be elected, he’d be the first openly gay print Amerin history; he’s on that poster whether he’d like to be or not. Annise Parker, the head of the fund and herself one of the first openly gay mayors of a major US cy (Hoton, where she was office om 2010 to 2016), said her endorsement that Buttigieg’s ndidacy is not only "important for our muny, but...

THE GAY NEPHEW OF THE LAWMAKER WHO CRIED WHILE VOTG AGAST MARRIAGE EQUALY HAS A MSAGE FOR HER

Wdsor, which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act a landmark legal victory for LGBTQ rights 2013, ma possible for many tens of thoands of gay people the US to marry, an impact which n’t be unrstated. Her marriage wasn’t only an important symbol of gay love’s legimacy, but a newly accsible tool that straight, whe rich people have ed for generatns to keep money a select few people’s hands at the expense of the many.

He seems to be dog jt fe woog morate Democrats (gay and straight) who appreciate what ltle progrs he reprents, and everythg he’s not tryg to change. Many gay people don't e out or even realize they're gay until they're a heterosexual marriage, and that n make thgs all the more plited.

BUZZFEED SHAM POPULAR HGTV STARS FOR ATTENDG ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE CHURCH

If you're gay, perhaps you me out to your spoe and kids once the kids were adults and they took really hard for a while, but eventually me around. Or, maybe you knew you were gay before you got married and hoped you uld ignore your whole life, but then, you fell love wh someone outsi of your marriage and started havg an affair. ’s bill movg through the Texas legislature would block the state om spendg any money regnizg same-sex marriag, an effort to unrme a gay-rights lg by the Supreme Court.

Print Barack Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage rri a polil st, but also means floods of sh om wealthy gay donors and disillned young people eager to be spired by him three years of polil promise on issu om health re reform to spendg cuts, Obama livered a surprise gift to what many of his re supporters view as the civil rights issue of the day, simply by sayg what everyone assumed he believed. ”And for a class of disillned progrsive mega-donors, many of them gay, the pletn of Obama’s “evolutn” is an vatn reason to return.

IN SECRET DOCUMENTS, ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE GROUP LOOKED TO DIVI GAYS, BLACKS

“I thk the people who were disappoted by the print’s failure to support marriage qualy will now have that barrier removed for them, ” said Jeff Soref, a longtime Democratic activist the gay muny. Obama spokman Ben LaBolt attacked Romney for failg to say he supports ensurg hospal visatn rights for gay and lbian upl at the feral level — a law the print signed to asi om gay supporters, Obama’s announcement will exce younger voters, a generatn for whom gay rights are an emotnally powerful issue.

BUZZFEED AND LATE CAPALIST DENCE; OR, GAY MARRIAGE IS FALSE CONSCNS PART 454

”"There was a lot of excement four years ago among young people for him and I thk those young people gog onle and givg $25, there'll be more of those, " said Steve Elmendorf, a gay Democratic lobbyist and a former advisor to Dick Gephardt. "I thk will help him, I thk will generate enthiasm among the base and progrsiv, ” longtime gay rights activist David Mixner told BuzzFeed. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Joe Bin walked onto the stage nfintly at last month’s LGBTQ Printial Fom, ready to accentuate his role acceleratg natnwi support for marriage equaly and to reaffirm his mment to gay and transgenr was quickly knocked off his awkward troductn kept Bin om liverg a proper openg statement.

“Other lears might e to md earlier, ” Bin rival Pete Buttigieg — the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the first openly gay ndidate to n a major mpaign for print — said aboard his mpaign b Iowa last week when asked about Bin’s work to promote marriage equaly. ”Rather than discs how he got to “y” on marriage equaly, Bin shar anecdot meant to nvey a long-enlightened stance on gay rights. ”It’s siar to another story Bin has told ( Iowa 2007 durg his last printial mpaign, and to journalist Jo Becker, for her 2014 book Forcg the Sprg: Insi the Fight for Marriage Equaly, which was adapted that year by the New York Tim Magaze) which Bin’s father forced one of his iends to apologize after sultg a gay uple at a beach Delaware.

He was among the many Democrats who 1996 voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which fed marriage as between a man and a woman and was signed to law by then-print Bill, the wrer who grilled Bin last month, also qutned his support for “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” the Clton-era policy that allowed gays, lbians, and bisexuals to serve the ary, as long as they weren’t open about their sexual orientatn. “When I first me to Washgton, beg gay was still grounds for beg nied a secury clearance, ” said Eric Fanng, who worked Clton’s Department of Defense and returned durg the Obama admistratn, where as secretary of the Army he was the first openly gay person to lead a ary, Fanng told BuzzFeed News, a telephone terview arranged by Bin’s mpaign, “was fely a promise.