Thanks! I got the hell out though. I get free health care now.

Yep. Healthy people pay for it.

M. Nam

When ancient Hindu society had ways of integrating and peacefully accommodating those people who didn’t fall into the usual heterosexual categories, why are you so up-in-arms about it? There are plenty of instances in Hindu mythology as well, that have gender-bending/gender-switching. Manu’s daughter Ila did it. Krishna did it. Even Shikhandi has somewhat ambiguous gender status.

People have got to stop being so uptight. If a homosexual couple wants to be married, and be acknowledged as being married, where’s the harm in it? They’re perfectly wonderful people who want the same happiness as everyone else.

With respect to a larger discussion, I don’t understand this. Are these folks hung up about the word ‘marriage’? or are they clamoring for equal rights? If its, the latter, I understand and support it. Orientation is a personal choice, and its absurd for someone to have better rights just cos they have an opposite sex partner. But if the hullaballoo is about redefining the word ‘marriage’ – I can see where people would get turned off, especially desis. I guess most desis fall into the tolerant category – but they also like to keep it to “don’t ask, don’t tell”. If the LGBT community insists on a redefinition of traditionally accepted behavior and flaunting it – it is understandable that a large majority of the people are going to be uncomfortable. In most ‘supportive’ desis, there is a huge amount of hypocrisy – it is usually support-as-long-as-it-doesnt-affect-me. We desis are, by nature, a bit reserved and don’t like to stir up controversy. We also are very strongly affected by the what-will-others-think syndrome which keeps us from showing explicit support to a cause which in addition to being controversial affects a very small minority within us.

Think about it this way – when immigrants move to a new country, they can culturally try to assimilate or they can try to keep to their own norms while demanding equal treatment. Similarly, LGBT people can try to assimilate to heteronormative (i.e. man-woman-marriage-kids blah blah) ideas, or they can try to create their own (i.e. sexual liberation – which involves all people, not just same-sex attracted people). Marriage is our green card, and causes the same kinds of mixed feelings I think (at least among people who are self-reflective). Of course, for some of us, marriage actually IS our green card, but I’ll let someone else introduce citizenship issues for now

So where we run into problems though is that marriage defines a whole set of rights from visiting your partner in the hospital to inheritance to all kinds of things. Personally, I could, at this point in my life, give a flying f about fitting into notions of marriage most of the time, but I’d like the rights that human beings ought to have. And if I ever want to get married for love, I might change my mind.

I don’t buy the defense of the desi “community” though. As Chris Rock says, everyone has at least a gay cousin. By that standard, this affects a lot of people, and if more people talked openly about this, it would be better for everyone. Rigidly straight people would probably benefit the most, based on one experience I had talking about lgbt issues to a mostly straight audience who deal with similar problems of being in the closet about partners (because of race or something else) or all kinds of other things. Just imagine its halloween – but the whole year!

But, if you want to stay in your cupboards and shiver in fear, by all means…don’t let me stop you–you’re loss. I’ve got a life to figure out how to live – if you want to come along for the ride, you’re welcome to.

There is plenty of gender-bending/gender-switching in the Hindu epics, so I highly doubt that there’s any real cause to get so up-in-arms about it. The Pandavas and Kauravas were descended from one such couple.

Back when people needed to have more kids, I can understand how a taboo against homosexuality would develop, but now, we have so many ways that homosexual couples can have children, ranging from adoption to using a surrogate, and kids have a much better chance of survival now, so it’s not like entire communities are going to die out if it stops being a taboo. There are so many people who genuinely want to be married, and to be accepted for their lifestyle choice, and they are certainly entitled to it.

My usual response to marriage stuff though is – I’d rather have free health care or someone to address the racism within the LGBT community.

Dr. Amonymous, if you’re in this part of the U.S., you may be interested in this conference taking place next week: http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=11280

Thanks! I got the hell out though. I get free health care now.