Get Aboard

When President Obama announced his evolving position on gay marriage, he spoke for me. I, too, have seen my position on gay people move slowly, steadily towards full acceptance, including marriage.

I was borne in the 1950s. Like many kids of my generation, I learned the derisive terms “faggot” and “fairy” before I knew what a homosexual was (probably before I knew what a heterosexual was).

My thinking began to change when I came to understand that being gay wasn’t a choice. How could it be otherwise? Throughout my life, you certainly didn’t improve your prospects by announcing that you were gay.

As an adult, I came to know gay people and found we shared common values. They cared about their families, their homes, and their communities. So did I. In business they were often successful. As a group they seemed unusually creative. I respected all this.

I didn’t see that in any way, shape, or form, gay people diminished my life one iota. In fact, it seemed the contrary.

A few years ago I helped my daughter and her roommate look for an apartment in the D.C. area. At one point we discussed neighborhoods in transition, and my daughter’s roommate mentioned casually, “...and first come the gays.” Apparently it is now accepted knowledge, taught in college classes, that gay people are the most likely demographic to revive failing urban neighborhoods. How remarkable I thought? And something, I’m sure, not lost on big city mayors.

In the near term the country will likely remain split on the gay marriage issue. But gay people will move where they feel welcome and that includes where they can marry. I think that young, talented, straight people will follow, seeking out the same tolerant communities as their gay friends.

Ultimately it may come down to economics. States that resist this new paradigm will watch their youth depart, and then, sometime later, wonder why there’s so little happening in their cities.

It’s simple: we want the same good things in life for our gay friends and gay family members as we want for ourselves. One of the good things, for most of us anyway, is the right to marry the person we love and make a life together.

The train is leaving the station, get aboard.