What exactly is this "homosexual agenda" Grand Moff Scalia was going on about? For starters, it's not that much-circulated list that goes "12:30, meet for lunch at that hot little spot in Soho; 2:00, buy butt plug; 3:00, plot downfall of Western civilization." Nope—it is, simply, to have the same rights of inheritance, health insurance, and legal recognition that your ordinary, everyday Russian mail-order bride has. Opponents of gay marriage say that homosexual relationships are by their very natures fleeting, ephemeral, and shallow—when the fact of the matter is that for every gay guy going out, taking drugs, and screwing strangers in the men's room at discos, there is a loving couple staying in, eating dinner together by the fireplace, and cheating on each other with strangers on business trips—not unlike a heterosexual couple! Why, then, shouldn't gays and lesbians be granted the right to adopt children together, file their taxes together, and then ruin each other in the divorce proceedings, just like straight couples do?

After all, Anita Bryant's fears to the contrary, the gays are not recruiting. Besides the fact that real estate prices in Chelsea are already high enough, gays are not Mormons: I have never seen the homosexual population of this city going door-to-door in their jaunty sweaters, handing out canapés, amyl nitrate poppers, and Tom of Finland postcards. (Though I do suppose that not a few of them have wished those adorable clean-cut Mormon missionaries were gay.) Nor do lesbians follow unsuspecting young girls on the street on their Harleys, offering packets of herbal tea and coupons good for a free buzzcut down at Spike's Barber Shop. I can only speak for myself, but the only thing that's come remotely close to making me catch The Gay is Jonny McGovern.

That's not to say, of course, that the gay lifestyle doesn't have plenty to recommend it. For one thing, dating is greatly simplified: Since your partner is, after all, a guy just like you, you know exactly what they want: Hot, dirty, nasty sex that conforms as closely as possible to the conventions of that porn tape you just rented. An entire industry has grown up around this fact, as the golden, pre-AIDS age of bathhouses, circuit parties, and sex tours proves. (Lesbians, on the other hand, are still women, and, as a result, they tend to pair up in monogamous couples, nest, and form communities. Notable Sapphic rookeries include Park Slope, Northampton, San Francisco, and the WNBA.)

Yet, though the fringe benefits are incredible, being gay has its downside, as well. I don't mean homophobes and gay-bashers and awkward phone calls over whether you'll be bringing your "friend" to Grandma's for Thanksgiving. Imagine all those complaints your girlfriend has about you—you're a slob, you don't pay attention to her when she's had a hard day at work, you pissed on the toilet seat when you came in drunk last night. Now imagine someone else doing that shit to you. Maddening, isn't it?

If anything, we straight people ought to recognize that we owe our homosexual brethren a debt. They've given us so much—disco, Dan Savage, the sudden desire to shave our back hair—and what do they ask in return? Only to be left in peace, preferably someplace with good Thai restaurants and an Albercrombie and Fitch outlet, and the occasional bottle of Astroglide.

What it comes down to isn't the realities of gay life; it's the fantasy of straight life. In his dissenting position, Scalia also wrote, "Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned." Once the obvious jokes ("are you with the groom or with the groom?") are played out, though, you have to admit that marriage in this country is a long way from what some people would like it to be. Half of all marriages fail. About a third of all babies are born out of wedlock, and, while conservatives may decry that little fact and spend their free time contemplating ways to chain deadbeat dads to the welfare mothers they knocked up, I don't see anyone advocating passing any laws mandating that affluent childless couples breed.

The first step in realizing that homosexual marriage might be a good idea is to recognize that heterosexual marriage is a fiction in the first place. For many, a husband or wife has become just another lifestyle accessory, a nostalgic relic of a time when men almost literally owned women and the traditional division of labor according to sex was a necessity for running a household. These days, women work outside the home; men stay home with the kids. People spend all day commuting and working, zoning out in front of the TV on weekends, staying together with a partner they've ceased to have any meaningful relationship with simply because they've got so much money sunk into their joint property. Kids are raised by nannies or day care. I can't help but think that a whole lot of gay couples could do a much, much better job of being married than some of the straight couples I've known.

So if Lawrence v. Texas is, indeed, one step closer to gay marriage, then all I have to say is: Thank God.

Posted June 29, 2003 12:14 AM