Smear the Queer was one of the great elementary school playground games of all time. The rules, as I recall, were sublime. There was a ball. Whoever had the ball got the ever-lovin' crap beaten out of him by everyone else. That was the game. I had no idea why one would want to catch the ball, given rule of law, and I had less idea why he was called a "queer" when other words sooner came to mind, like "moron." But oh, in my chrysalis state I did enjoy whoopin' his ass. Very much. Yes.
Do kids still play Smear the Queer? Has it been renamed? Come on, parents. Tell me something I actually want to know.
Until I moved to Seattle, those childhood games of Smear the Queer constituted the sum of my experience with the gay community. Oh, I'm sure I knew lots of gays back in Ohio, but this was the midwest, and this was back then, and they would never have left the closet. When I arrived in Seattle and had an openly lesbian office-mate, it was a watershed moment for me. As I told Betty, it was exactly as odd as meeting someone from Atlantis. "Sure, I've heard of you people, but I've never met one of you before..."
Betty was a shrill malcontent and, not surprisingly, the first friend I made in Seattle. For my immersion therapy, she took me to the Wild Rose, a raucous lesbian bar situated between a tattoo parlor and leather shop. She was mortified when I stared at the women making out. I'm not even one of those guys who finds lesbians a turn-on, but it was so strange and new, I couldn't avert my eyes.
Funny to write about that now. After 12 years in Seattle, I could see twin sisters making out and I wouldn't even break stride.
Next up was Stan. And then I pretty much stopped noticing gay friends; they came and went like blond friends or tall friends or Episcopalian friends. Until recently, that is, when this small group became conspicuous by their continued presence. And then it struck me like a thunderbolt. An epiphany.
I am 100% against gay marriage.
This is the one demographic that can't have kids and suddenly drop all their friends, and I'll be damned if I give them the legal means of doing so. I will move mountains to defend the, um, sanctity of the, er, sacred institution of marriage. Yeah! Because I feel so strongly about its sacrednessity. The family is under attack, and all.
Sorry guys. You're stuck with me.