Will Marriage Make Gay Communities Stronger?

In spite of beauty queens and gossip queens, the slow clip toward marriage equality for gays and lesbians remains steady. In the debate over this issue, supporters of gay marriage claim that communities are strengthened by stable, legally recognized unions. Thanks, Meghan McCain, for saying that. The comment got me to thinking, will gay marriage strengthen the gay community?

As is bound to happen with any group of people, personalities will clash and not everyone, in spite of shared experience and purpose, will get along. Throw in a penchant for doling out cutting one-liners and a me-first-cuz-I've-always-been-a-victim mentality and you've got the current gay conundrum: why do we want civil rights when we can't even be civil with one another?

True and true, I live in New York and I work in media - in other words, I'm not destined to know from nice. From gay OR straight people. But on the premise of shared experience and purpose, I would expect for us gays to, at the very least, be supportive of each other. To root for each other if only to see one of our own forge ahead. But that isn't always the case. If you're a twenty-something year old gay like me, at the crossroads of the Stonewall Riots and Prop 8, a space occupied by the Real World, Gossip Girl and Logo, you don't need a community, you don't need a secret society of other marginalized gays, you're out, loud and proud - the world, miss thang, is your oyster. The only problem with that is that you have a whole generation of gay men who get riled up for a rally or a cause celebre, but who couldn't care less about each other as people. And I'm not pointing fingers here, I'll be the first to tell you that more often than not, I find myself disliking most gay people I meet. It's the Blair Waldorf in me.

So, in the spirit of unity and equality, hours before California Supreme Court decides what to do about the Prop 8 mess, I'm promising to change my hatin' ways and inspire other gays to do the same.