{"id":7939,"date":"2014-10-08T07:55:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T11:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=7939"},"modified":"2014-10-08T10:21:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T14:21:56","slug":"marriage-values-and-the-ick-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=7939","title":{"rendered":"Marriage, Values, and the Ick Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some follow-ups to yesterday’s post about same-sex marriage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have a regular dialogue with a friend who is straight and is wrapping his head around the same-sex marriage thing. Here are some points from our dialogue that explain how I feel about “gay marriage.”
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\nFirst of all, a marriage is a marriage. There is no “straight marriage” as much as there is no “gay marriage.” It is either opposite-sex marriage or same-sex marriage. I just get annoyed by the straight writers in the media who keep calling same-sex marriage “gay marriage.” But the fault of that happening is mostly with gay people who coined the term long ago and continued to use it.<\/p>\n

Another random thought — isn’t it interesting that most media photos of same-sex marriage ceremonies that hit the news recently are of two women kissing, but seldom two men. Or if there are two men, the photo is of them showing their rings, but not embracing or kissing. Yeah, the straight media still has a major case of what is called the “ick factor.” It really is not unusual to see two women (lesbian or straight) kissing, but seeing two guys kiss? The standard reaction: “ewwww, ick!”<\/p>\n

Come on, get over it. People who love each other kiss. Kudos to gay men who are more courageous to kiss another man than straight men who won’t even kiss their father or brother. <\/p>\n

However, I also draw the line between seeing kisses of affection vs. romantic, passionate, sexual kisses. No matter where or who — such as if I see a man and woman on a TV show being romantic, my reaction is, “ewwwww, get a room! Ick!”<\/p>\n

Then there is the wedding fall-de-roll. Readers of this blog know that I am not a wedding guy. Doesn’t matter, gay or straight, I hate the fuss, bother, playing dress-up, and all the frilly froo-froo that weddings entail. I’m just a guy-guy and don’t get into the hype of weddings. And when gay men on the, let’s say, “more effeminate” end of the spectrum get all excited about a wedding, it just makes me roll my eyes. Okay, okay, everyone is different. Embrace diversity. Don’t criticize … okay, I get it. But I don’t have to like it.<\/p>\n

It is one thing to have a marriage ceremony witnessed before close family and friends. But it is quite something else when a show is staged. Yeah, there I said it: a show. Most weddings I have observed are staged performances. <\/p>\n

My spouse and I walked into our county courthouse and had a marriage ceremony performed by a judge who I have known since we each were six years old. My twin brother was our only witness. Yeah, I might have wanted all of my siblings to be there, too, but my spouse did not because my family overwhelms him. I honored his wishes and kept our marriage ceremony very small.<\/p>\n

After the ceremony, we went to another area of the courthouse and filed the paperwork to have our house retitled as tenants by the entirety, then went home and had lunch. After that, I mowed the lawn. What mattered most is that we were legally married and our love was ever-deepened as we began to live legally as “one.”<\/p>\n

And finally as I said in an email to my friend, “a marriage is about a commitment to live as one with love, honesty, and integrity. These values have no sex.”<\/p>\n

Life is short: respect marriage as a commitment — that is what is celebrated!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some follow-ups to yesterday’s post about same-sex marriage. I have a regular dialogue with a friend who is straight and is wrapping his head around the same-sex marriage thing. Here are some points from our dialogue that explain how I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}