It’s not often that I’m moved by Muppets. I can appreciate that Kermit has a hard time being green and Oscar the Grouch is a depressive who lives in a dustbin. That’s some reasonably high quality pathos, but it doesn’t quite reduce me to tears. Seeing Bert and Ernie, outed as a gay couple, on the other hand, snuggled up on the sofa on last week’s DOMA-bashing New Yorker cover got me genuinely choked up (the happy sort). And, frankly, I don’t know who I am any more. The controversial cover is not only exceptionally twee, but arguably irreverent towards the bitterly-fought battle for gay rights that has a rainbow coloured trail of carnage leading right back to the Stonewall riots of the 60s. Yet I found myself looking at two of my favourite childhood characters in a state of gay domestic bliss and thinking, “I want that.”
So there we have it, last week, a pair of fuzzy-faced humanoids made me want to get married and spawn 2.4 biblically-named children. I haven’t been this easily influenced by the Muppets since Sesame Street gave me the low-down on the letter D when I was a toddler. OK – this feeling isn’t entirely new. I’ve always had a thing for monogamy. And cake. Sentimentality? Not so much. Weddings I can take or leave. The “take” part is mostly free booze-driven. So why the hell would I want to get married?
There’s a small but loud voice within the LGBT community that throws scorn on the idea of queers aping a heteronormative institution. I can see where this rowdy lot are coming from – what’s the point in marriage in the first place? But I just can’t bring myself to join them. Every time I see gays slating gay marriage, I feel this weird pang of sadness. Weddings may well be these bizarrely ritualistic and mawkish conformity-fests, but there’s no reason why the entire institution of marriage should be hetero-owned. If gays want to appropriate a slightly fusty, traditionally straight practice, who gives a white, frilly frock? Rejecting a right that’s been so ferociously fought for is one thing, but labelling those who embrace it as traitors to the queer cause is hateful.
Plus, what’s going to hurt the homophobes more: bile-flecked in-fighting about the intricacies of queer politics or a gigantic, bacchanalian, champagne-drenched, public celebration of same-sex love? Bitterly judging members of our own community for “selling out” is a pretty poor approach to making the world less shitty for LGBT people. Why not, instead, take our gigantic hard-ons for one another and rub them in the haters’ faces?
I’ve tried to work out exactly what it is that makes me want to get married and I can’t. It’s almost an instinctive urge though, so I’m willing to accept that I’ve been socially conditioned. A part of me definitely sees gay weddings as a big middle finger to the conservatives and religious nutjobs who think they own marriage. There’s no doubt that I want to play a part in that middle finger brandishing. But saying a loud, “fuck you”, to society seems like a dysfunctional reason to celebrate your love for someone. Maybe a part of me (my inner child?) just wants to wear a pretty dress and throw a party for all the people I love. But what about the spending the rest of my life with one person part? Maybe that should scare me, but it doesn’t. Being single, I’m a long way off that kind of commitment and I’m still not averse to having fun. But I imagine that if I were having more casual sex, I’d be starting to get bored with it.
Whatever my reasons for wanting to get married may be, I feel it’s my right not to be judged by members of my own community. Hey – fellow gays – let’s leave the judging to Norman Tebbit, yeah? With the UK’s brand new equal marriage legislation, I’m looking forward to getting my first gay wedding invitations from my friends in relationships. No pressure, guys.
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