When you date a new guy, how do you find out about his exes?

Well, I expect I have your attention, so I might as well begin. I’ll do that by saying that I have heard both sides of the argument for, and against, gay marriage. Honestly, then, if I were the person in the United States given the decision about whether or not gay marriage should be legal, I would have to say that it should be legal. Because we have a Constitutional separation of church and state, though, I don’t think the gub’ment should be allowed to tell churches what kind of marriages they should, or should not allow. I also don’t think that the churches should tell the gub’ment what kind of marriages the gub’ment should, or should not allow.

Gub’ment is a Southern word that means, in English, “the government,” and is a derogatory term aimed at those rascals in Washington, DC and, for that matter, Atlanta, GA, who have abused and misused the responsibility given them by their constituents.

Ahh…but the Bible says…..I’ve heard it. And what about…..I’ve heard that, too.

The fact is that when the gub’ment decided that justices of the peace and probate judges and other civil authorities could perform marriages, THAT was the time for the people in the church to jump up and cry foul, and they didn’t. If they did, I never heard about it.

Well, then, what if the gub’ment decides to allow not just same sex marriages, but other non-traditional marriages as well? What if the gub’ment decides it’s okay to let one man marry two or three women at one time.

Okay, so what if they do? As far as I’m concerned, if a man wants to marry more than one woman at a time, he’s more than welcome to whatever he brings on himself.

Back to gay marriage. To me it’s just a matter of acceptance. If I want to pursue happiness with a fly rod, or a bird dog and a shotgun, or on the back of a hammer-headed bay that nobody else will ride, that’s my business. If people who are gay want to pursue happiness by getting married, who am I to stop them?

To me, being homo-phobic is the new racism. Of course, the old racism didn’t go anywhere; it’s still right where we left it. Growing up white in the 1960s in South Georgia exposed me to levels of racism undreamed of by anyone born after 1970, no matter what their race.

Racism, like homo-phobia, is simply a lazy person’s way to hate. If you’re racist, you don’t have to get to know someone to find out you don’t like them. All you have to do is look at them.

It’s the same way if you’re homo-phobic. If somebody looks, or acts, gay then right away you have a reason to cross them off your Christmas list.

If you’re homo-phobic for religious reasons, well, so much the better. That way you’ve got a Big Book and a congregation backing you up 100%.

Sad news, folks, back in the fifties and sixties, people used that same Big Book and that same congregation to justify their attitudes then, too.

In the meantime, whether you’re for it or against it, I probably should admit that there really is an aspect of gay marriage that bothers me. It’s gay divorce.