Thursday night, I sat in my parents' front yard just outside Memphis and looked at the house where I spent my teenage years. I wasn't intending to have either Poignant Thoughts or A Moment, I just wanted to smoke a cigarette. (SHUT UP, I AM QUITTING.) I looked at the windows of my old bedroom and suddenly remembered, "Oh, tomorrow might be the day." And then, surprisingly but not out of nowhere, I remembered the early '90s, when I started to realize I was "different." Well, I already knew THAT. I was a weird kid: I'd been playing piano since the age of four and reading since two; I was not all that athletic (I'm being generous); and I was just generally WEIRD. Suddenly, as I hit puberty, I realized that all those sexxxy thoughts I was having were about the boys in my class, not the girls.
At that time, I never imagined that I would be sitting here today, typing at you about how I feel about the fact that I can now, in Tennessee, marry the man I love, whoever he ends up being, LINE FUCKING STARTS HERE. #mustwantkids #mustlovedogs
Before I came out, certain forms of Christianity had already convinced me that my secret was far too shameful ever to share, lest I risk eternity in a fiery hell. But then one day, at 19, I dealt with it, accepted it (thanks, Tori Amos!), and basically told everyone I had ever met. In hindsight, I'm not sure it was necessary to tell the Comcast call center lady or the mailman, but when you've been holding it in that long ...
My parents are wonderful, but we had a hard time when I came out, for quite a few years. As I went through my 20s, I developed amazing friendships with other gay people, but the idea of getting married and having a "normal life" was something I wished for, but wasn't all that confident in. I was 23 when Massachusetts legalized gay marriage, but whoa, that is the Northeast and it is fucking COLD THERE. And super commie pinko liberal. Tennessee? Fuck no.
But then something changed the last few years. We hit a tipping point. Suddenly, even in the South, I no longer paid attention to whether people accepted my "lifestyle." If you didn't, you just didn't exist in my life, Sorry Not Sorry. I never have experienced true "discrimination" because of my sexuality, probably because, as I have been told, I "pass," whatever that means. My response has always been that I'm just me. I love basketball as much as I love musical theater, and neither of them, in my estimation, has anything to with the fact that I think doing sex with guys is So Great.
Oh, I was highly aware of discrimination, first working as the associate director of Truth Wins Out, which has been a leader in the fight to destroy the cruel, harmful "ex-gay" industry, and now here at yr Wonkette. I yell at wingnuts loudly and often, and I am fucking HILARIOUS when I do.
People are getting marriage licenses in Memphis, right now. HOMO PEOPLE are getting them. If I meet the man of my dreams tonight, or maybe if I already know him and don't know it, and I decide to pull an Editrix Move and do a whirlwind romance (pregnancy unlikely), I could go down to the clerk's office five minutes from my house with my hot male piece o' ass in tow, and we could get a marriage license. And we could call Phyllis, the badass lady judge who did my brother's wedding and said she'd be thrilled to officiate mine, once Tennessee's head comes up out its ass on the issue.
Well, that head has been forcibly removed from dat ass. Chill out Tennessee, the pain will stop before you know it.
I had a tiny part in this Supreme Court victory. You see, Thom Kostura and Ijpe DeKoe, two of the Tennessee plaintiffs, are also two of my best friends. And you know how the South is, everybody knows everybody somehow, and I started introducing them to bigwig media whore homosexuals like my friend Jonathan. Before I knew it, they had been convinced to be a part of history, to sue the state of Tennessee, and then America, to have their already signed, sealed, delivered, and heavily consummated New York marriage recognized. And they won.
Ugh, and because I can already hear Thom and Ijpe going "we look like shit in that picture," fine, here are the boys looking SEXXXY AS FUK walking into the Supreme Court:
Thom and Ijpe's marriage is now officially recognized in New York, Tennessee, or wherever else in US America their lives take them. In fact, Ijpe texted me earlier to say, "WE BROKE ALL THE STATES." Yep, they sure did.
And man, that's somethin'. I lived to see the day. Guess I'd better go find a husband.
Gotdammit, Evan. If I bust out crying again, after yesterday's Joyful News, my bf is gonna call a doctor to come look at me.
No pizza, though. NO PIZZA11!!1!!!!