Two capital cities will make history this week as they join the exclusive club of five states and seven countries that allow same-sex marriages.
Following Congress’ failure to reject Mayor Adrian Fenty’s bill to allow gay marriage in the nation’s capital and Chief Justice John Roberts’ refusal to intervene, Washington, D.C., will join other capitals across the globe, including Madrid, Ottawa, Oslo and Stockholm, as it begins to recognize gay marriages today.
More surprisingly, Mexico City is poised to begin recognizing gay marriages Thursday, which remains a shock for the staunchly conservative, Roman Catholic-dominated region.
However, Mexico’s federal government appealed to the country’s Supreme Court in an effort to deal gay and lesbian couples another blow to achieving basic human rights — rights many straight couples take for granted.
Thankfully, the country’s Supreme Court recently rejected a similar measure brought to it by the governors of three Mexican states who worried the new law would force them to recognize the gay marriages.
For the record, the law would do no such thing in Mexico City or Washington, D.C.
The laws wouldn’t affect anyone except the gay couples who simply want to publicly celebrate their love for one another.
The laws wouldn’t taint the “sanctity of marriage” heterosexual couples hold so dear.
And by “sanctity,” I’m referencing, with no particular emphasis, Elizabeth Taylor’s eight different marriages to seven men, Britney Spears’ 55-hour marriage and the divorce rate creeping up to nearly 50 percent in the U.S.
I have a secret for the Bible-verse-bellowing zealots and lucky heterosexuals who believe gay marriage will be the ultimate and complete demise of the sanctity of marriage: You’ve already tarnished it yourself.
At least allow us to share in your overwhelming self-pity and wallowing despair when we discover we might not succeed at the whole marriage thing either. But let us try.
Forget about all the rights we’re denied even when we’re appeased with civil unions.
Forget about the shame many of us feel every day when we realize most of our peers think we shouldn’t publicly love our spouses.
We’re just asking you to give us a chance.
What’s the worst that could happen with Mexico City and our capital opening their hearts to gay couples so we can open ours?
Whether gay couples can wed or not, many of the same religiously righteous radicals will still proselytize their beliefs of eternal hellfire and damnation for anyone who falls in love with the “wrong” sex. I’m not a fanatic, and I can only recite a handful of Bible verses. But as an occasional churchgoer, as a lover of affectionate cheek grabs and lipstick stains from elderly Methodist women leaning over in their pews, and as a gay man, I have a feeling my God won’t be too upset with me that I have the ability and the divine gift to love another human being regardless of his gender.
And with all the hatred in this world, I think my God would be happy to know I’m simply trying to love another person.
At least Washington, D.C., and Mexico City are giving me a chance.
Jared Misner is metro editor at the Alligator.
