Dear Lesbian,
Why do gays and lesbians want special rights?
Okay, so winter is the time of year I pick up books and actually READ them instead of using them as beverage coasters or props to raise my monitor. I won’t bore you with the historic details, as I realize our readers don’t come here looking for an education (what a scary thought THAT would be), but a recurring theme caught my most cynical attention. It’s the idea, that we as homos, seek “special rights.”
What’s so special about wanting to share your underwear drawer with the one you love on a permanent basis? What’s so special about wanting to hold down a 9-5 job and paying taxes to an unsupportive government? Personally, I find the 40-hour-a-week job as special as seeing spandex coming back in style, but that’s just me.
Fact is, most of what we ask for is far from special. Let’s list the “special rights” that are popular today, shall we:
- Marriage- This will provide us the opportunity to clean each other out in divorce settlements like our greedy hetero counterparts.
- Military service- Somebody shoot me, please.
- Adoption Rights- We have just as much right to screw up our kids as our parents did to us.
- Safe Work Places- No, we don’t expect the air to be free of toxins… we just want to KEEP our cancer inducing jobs.
Even though as a lesbian I do agree that we need these issues legally won in order to achieve equality and totally piss off “The Man,” I just can’t help but to see the irony in it. The right-wing establishment desperately clings to what they perceive as “theirs” even though what they “have” is really not all that attractive. It’s kind of like buying a hunter green ’81 Chrystal LeBaron or dating Rita McNeil, then bragging to your friends about it.
Call me simple minded, but I really don’t need — or WANT — conservative elements in my life. A piece of paper stamped “married” by some guy in a black robe is really meaningless, as a divorce can be obtained for 40 proofs of purchase off my Rice Krispies. And, there is nothing special about spending $25,000 on a big ol’ party where your best friends are forced to wear matching sea foam attire and make small talk with your great aunt Esmerelda.
All of a sudden these “hetero rights” don’t sound so “special” do they? I say keep ‘em. We’ll make our own.
Cheers,
Lesbian
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