I'm risking getting my gay card suspended by giving you all this glimpse behind the rainbow curtain, but I've decided the risk is worth it. So fasten your seatbelts for "the Gay Agenda: Thanksgiving 2011":
- Pick up the free-range turkey we ordered last week from the meat market.
And there you have it: The Thanksgiving Gay Agenda revealed.
Take that, Western Civilization. How are you doing, Institution of Marriage? Are your foundations shaking? Is the undermining almost complete? Or does our Thanksgiving agenda just look a whole lot like yours? Of course it does.
Because here's the deal: I don't pay gay taxes, I don't fold gay laundry, and I don't take out gay trash. On Thursday morning I'm not going to stuff a gay turkey or bake a gay pecan pie. And I don't have a gay marriage. I have a marriage.
A love-honor-and-cherish-in-sickness-and-in-health-until-death-do-us-part marriage. An argue-over-whose-turn-it-is-to-empty-the-dishwasher-or-clean-out-the-litter-box marriage. A set-the-table-together-on-Thanksgiving-and-wipe-the-water-spots-off-the-wine-glasses-together marriage.
What I don't have are the 1,138 federally protected rights some of the other married couples sitting around my Thanksgiving table have -- including health benefits, family medical leave, social security benefits, income tax status, estate tax benefits and the uncontested right to be "next of kin" to each other if we need to. And securing those by ending marriage discrimination is definitely on the agenda.
So this Thanksgiving 2011, when we sit down for dinner, we will have a whole long list of things to be thankful for at my house. For friends and family. For food and fellowship. For sons home safe from war today and for the hope of peace on Earth someday. For the privilege of being part of a great nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. And for the hope that someday soon, the Thanksgiving Gay Agenda will include giving thanks for marriage equality taking us another step closer to actually being a nation where liberty and justice for all really means all.
Happy Thanksgiving!