I wish I could get more excited about gay marriage being legalized in Iowa and Sweden.  Good for them, but what the hell difference does that make?  More equality?  Maybe?  I doubt it.  Blacks have been getting married to whites legally for years, and they still get treated like second class citizens.  What makes anyone think we are any different?

I do not think that a ban against gay marriage is reasonable (let alone enforceable) in the United States.  Yet, I also don’t understand why as a gay man I should be obliged to ask the government, “May I please be married, Motherland?”  Am I being cynical?  Try living in a country where rule by homophobic mobsters has been the most effective form of government it has ever experienced and not be cynical.  I dare you.

I have been married to Dmitri for the better part of my life.  We got married when at time and place where it was illegal for two adolescent boys to do the nasty, let alone kiss in public.  The concept of us getting married was neither legal nor illegal.  It was downright unthinkable by most of society.  But, we got married anyway.  I did not give a shit what the government or most of society thought of us or our marriage.  I still don’t.  I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me that some bureaucrat though it was okay for Dmitri to be my #1 fuckbuddy and spiritual companion.  If another piece of paper tells me that we aren’t married, it doesn’t matter to me either.  Laws are only words on dead wood, and I get to choose whether I follow them or not.  Actually,  I’m breaking them right now since gay marriage is still not legal in Minnesota.  Big fucking deal!  My actions and will are more powerful than legislation, and I will die for these principles if I must regardless of the political fashion of the day.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do not miss the days back in Irkustk when the mere fact that I was openly gay meant that I could be locked up at anytime.  But, I also am lucid enough to realize that it takes more than just government-sponsorship to experience freedom and real change.  Stonewall was a violent uprising.  MLK’s words were nothing but pretty platitudes without Malcolm X’s threats.  Jesus got nailed to a tree before anyone really paid attention to his hippy diatribes.  Civil disobedience is a nice way of saying “willful lawbreaking for political gain.”  The fight for freedom is never easy or truly won.  The moment vigilance falls, an the wrong people get in charge, those who recognize the “legitimacy” of idiotic laws start to follow.

I remember far too well when the new Russian goverment granted equality for gays in May 1993 by abolishing Stalin’s Article 121.  But, by 2001 the short-lived and rather tenuous “equality” started reverting back to the bad old days.  (Yeltsin, why did you abandon us to the business oligarchs?)

Anyway, that’s my stupid anarchist Jesus-freak opinion.  Happy weddings to all of you and congratulations on the win.  Just be sure to avoid complacency, or you will lose everything.