Las Vegas Envy

This article from the NY Times was sent to me by my lovely and talented, straight-but-not-narrow friend Lisa, who made the Big Apple her home a few years back. I agree with her simple assessment of this article as a "nice piece". (And really, don't we all want a nice piece?) Enjoy.

Las Vegas Envy
By Gail Collins

You’ll remember that Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriages, thanks to a court ruling in 2004. Everyone was not thrilled. There were petitions and attempts to pass constitutional amendments. Mitt Romney, who was evolving from liberal Republican governor to desperate Republican presidential candidate, declared his determination to keep Massachusetts from becoming “the Las Vegas of same-sex marriages.”

He grabbed hold of an antique law barring marriages of out-of-state couples whose own states would not let them be wed to make sure that nobody gay snuck over the state line in search of matrimony.

This week, the State Senate voted to repeal the law that Romney liked so much. We would tell you about the dramatic debate, except that it happened on a voice vote with no objections. The bill now goes to the House, which is also expected to pass it.

What changed? Well, with the economy the way it is, becoming the Las Vegas of anything whatsoever began to sound like a good deal. California has been raking in money from weddings of out-of-state gay couples since a court made same-sex marriage legal there.

In Massachusetts, a study commissioned by the state, with the optimism of such studies everywhere, predicted that getting rid of that old law could create hundreds of jobs, millions in tax revenue and tons and tons of local business for hotels and restaurants and party planners. As an advocate predicted reasonably, when a gay person decides to come to Massachusetts and get married, “most won’t come alone.”

The repeal was also about racial justice. In a year when we’ve been arguing about whether women or blacks deserve a presidential nominee more, it’s good to remember that when one discriminated-against group is lifted up, everybody tends to rise. The law against marrying out-of-staters was originally passed in 1913 during a national outcry over the black boxing champion Jack Johnson’s marriage to a white woman. Massachusetts did not ban black-white unions, but the state wanted to make sure that it did not turn itself into the Las Vegas of interracial marriage. Now this kind of thinking is seen as repulsive. As a result, gay Americans benefited.

After four years, same-sex marriage has also begun to feel normal in Massachusetts. It’s not something that comes up in conversation much anymore. There is no greater force against bigotry than the moment when something becomes so routine that you stop noticing it.

One state lawmaker who had originally supported a constitutional amendment against gay marriage changed her mind and voted against it when the measure went down to a final defeat in 2007. She told Pam Belluck of The Times about one of her older constituents who had nagged her to get rid of same-sex unions then turned around and lobbied her to keep them. A gay couple, she said, had moved into her neighborhood: “They help me with my lawn, and if there can’t be marriage in Massachusetts, they’ll leave.”

My 83-year-old mother, who I have always thought of as conservative on matters like sex, has a home helper, Joe Wallace, who is gay. To say they hit it off would be a deep, deep understatement. It gradually became clear to my siblings and me that there were any number of activities that my mother would rather do with Joe than with us.

Shopping, for sure. Having late-night telephone discussions about taking pills was another. Also preparing for bridge parties.

“Joe made menus,” my sister informed me.

My mother has begun to make inquiries about whether anybody is interested in taking her to the next Cincinnati Pride Alive Parade.

Back in 1970, when Americans were still adjusting to the Supreme Court ruling that people of different races had a constitutional right to wed, someone suggested to President Richard Nixon that same-sex marriages would be next.

“I can’t go that far; that’s the year 2000,” Nixon rejoined.

Nixon was a little early, but extremely prescient, especially when you think of the other things people predicted for our current era: flying cars, self-cleaning windows, 20-hour workweeks. An early 20th-century novel depicted New York City circa 2000 as “one huge garden, pierced here and there by slender towers or giant cupolas.”

It is very possible that we’ll be having a number of depressing discussions about gay rights over the next several months. Just this week we learned that California is going to have a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would bar same-sex marriages. And John McCain was unable to come up with a clear position on whether gays should be allowed to adopt.

But the forces of history are only on one side here. There’s going to be a long-term happy ending. Although I’m afraid we’ll never get those giant cupolas.

Crush du Jour: Colin Ferguson