My wife and I watched Brokeback Mountain last night and it was a really great flick. We were both kicking ourselves that we didn’t see it in the theater. The beautiful shots of the western landscape would have been so much more impressive on the big screen, but then we realized that we probably wouldn’t want to by sobbing in public at the end of the movie.

Brokeback doesn’t go for cheap sobs however (you can imagine what lesser filmmakers could have done with it). It goes for the real heartbreak; the “I’ve wasted my life because of fear and bigotry and now there’s nothing I can do about it” kind of despair and tragedy.

Which brings me to the recent news that Bush “is beginning a major push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage” (NYT). Some discount it as just a cynical political ploy that won’t be passed and it is. But just the talk of it leads to the stigmatization of homosexuals.

Most of the christian right in the USA wraps their homophobia in “hate the sin, not the sinner” claptrap. I’m sure the backers of the same-sex marriage ban will bend over backwards to pretend that they don’t wish to persecute gays, just defend marriage. Even many on the center left (like Kerry) don’t want to use the marriage word, but will endorse civil unions which carry all the rights and responsibilities of marriage except for the crucial semantics. This is all complete and utter bullshit.

Unless you endorse complete freedom for gays and lesbians to marry you add to the persecution of a minority. Even when you endorse civil unions, what you’re saying is “You’re different. You need to be treated differently. You’re not a complete and equal member of this society.” And that, to put it simply, is bigotry, institutionalized bigotry, the sort of bigotry that can lead to an empty and broken life as depicted in Brokeback Mountain.

Signing off (as M.River likes to say) as just another straight white man for gay marriage. permanent link to this post