Dear Provincetown,
In a recent New York Times report (1/21/04), I learned you are surprisingly busy this year during the off-season. No more taffy or rainbow paraphernalia preparation, now you’re in the business of marriage, eagerly anticipating the gay couples making their way to the altar, finally awarded, at least temporarily, spousal benefits by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. As a twenty one year-old who has “summered” in P-Town many a time as tourist, employee, drunkard, cruiser and smitten boyfriend, I passionately salute you. For various privileged, elitist, queer, idealist and—dare I say—radical reasons, marriage isn’t on my top five agenda for the gay rights movement but that is a moot point. You, Provincetown, are not “gay-friendly” as the Times suggests. You are gay-homosexuality metropolozied. You are straight-friendly. You even provide a lone bar (the Governor Bradford) for the breeders. As such, I am thrilled that you will pioneer gay marriage and provide the resources—the licenses, drag shows, silverware—demanded by your citizens and vacationers. You will legitimize love heretofore condemned, celebrate desire and devotion historically spat on or criminalized.
But there is a small little heterosexual, religious, traditionalist, reactionary and axis-of-evil problem named George W. Bush.
In his State of the Union address on January 20, the President told his 60 million person audience that “our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.” The operative word here is “defend.” Bush had just spent 45 minutes demanding we continue to “defend” our freedom, consequently asking for unilateral support in Iraq and for his terrorizing War on Terror. We must “defend” the Patriot Act, border patrol, our troops and our American way. Who, then, must we defend marriage from? Al-Gayda? Code Lavender? Provincetown, do not let Bush make you a terrorist city; do not let him root out the queers in their holes, their bars and their bed-and-breakfasts to ensure that our American marriage remains unscathed. You are one of the last (and first) strongholds in this domestic battlefield. Keep it real. Keep it irreverent. Keep it gay. If the Bush-supported amendment passes, you can always secede. Queer nation—no Republicans and only experimental, questioning, cute, straight people.
Provincetown, do not let Bush convince you that you are granting “special” rights without populist approval. He derided the judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Court as “activist judges…redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives.” Remind Bush, the President of our Union, what function the courts have. Remind him that a court of law swayed by the will of the people is wholly unconstitutional. Ask him to read the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision. Ask him to read the Constitution, with attention to the 14th Amendment and that silly bit known as the Equal Protection Clause. The opinion, P-town, is not infallible, but it is judicial and not just the “arbitrary will” of judges being “forced” upon the people. It is a judicial will, separate from the opinions of people and elected officials, as it should be. It is ironic that President Bush claims judges are activist who do not heed the views of his fellow colleagues. Provincetown, ask Bush if he knows about irony.
And while you’re at it P-town, ask him what the hell the Christian Coalition is doing in Washington. Ask him to read the First Amendment after he’s through with the Fourteenth. Provincetown, I suggest the opposition against gay marriage be contextualized. This is the same President who advocates faith-based initiatives and pooh-poohs the separation of church and state, who promotes abstinence programs when they categorically do not prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, and who spends $1.5 billion on marriage programs keeping battered women in their place. Provincetown, ask the President what other world leaders take recourse to tradition, religion and God to bulwark their programs.
And remember, Provincetown, as if you need reminding, that this is personal. However limited and un-postmodern the “personal-is-political” slogan may be, it behooves us and you to know this is not just a political game for the cultural Left and gay rights. This is our life. Bush cannot compassionately deny people health benefits, restrict their visitation rights, adoption rights or pension. Bush cannot compassionately demote people to second-class citizenship. You at least have been honest—we’re here, we’re queer, we want the State to legitimize our lives and give us spousal benefits. Ask the same from Bush, ask him to put his cards on the table and tell us we are threats to marriage, children and national security. What the Right, President Bush, Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition have to lose is their stronghold on social politics and the popularity of their religious dogma. What we have to lose, you and me, P-town, is our dignity, our right to love, to desire, to fuck and to marry without shame. We lose the possibility of full citizenship, of various benefits, of public and statist legitimacy, however problematic.
Provincetown, you and your comrades got us into this war, it is now high time we win it. I, for one, will be on your frontline.
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