The Big Doritos Factory

I've never heard of columnist Tommy Christopher before now, but here's an amusing piece by this presumably straight dude I just came across while surfing from hither to yon:

I used to be a bigot, by that definition, on this very issue. When I first heard about the idea of gay marriage, in the early 90s, it just sounded absurd to me, like jumbo shrimp, or compassionate conservative. I thought it was a capricious demand, something gay people wanted just to have, like a paraplegic demanding a bicycle just because someone else has one. What possible use could they have for it? I just did not get it.

At that time, I said all the stupid things people like that say, like “Well, they can get married, just not to each other, and I can’t marry a dude any more than they can. Boom. We’re equal.”

The first step in my “evolution,” as the President calls it, was to realize that it didn’t matter if I got it. They’re either equal human beings or not, endowed with the same rights, or not, whether I understand or approve of them or not.

Eventually, I came to understand that, duh, gay people want to get married for the same reasons anybody does; because they love each other, they want to raise children together, they want to spend the rest of their lives together and/or bitterly divorce after ruining each other’s lives. My personal view on marriage has evolved, too. Now, I’d advise anyone to run the other way, but I wouldn’t try to make a law against it. If you must get married, just make sure you have an open bar and a decent beef dish at the reception. And I’d like to be able to do some karaoke, if that’s possible.

To be clear, I don’t think a personal view of marriage as between a man and a woman is necessarily bigoted; if you don’t ever want to marry someone of your own gender, you should never have to, and you will always think of marriage that way. Lots of religions strongly prefer that you marry within your faith. That’s fine, as long as you don’t try to make a law about it. If you think same sex relations are yucky, that’s cool; lots of them think we’re gross, too. Just think of it all as a big Doritos factory: it’s nacho business.