ONE " TRADITIONAL" MESS OF A MARRAIGE

With all the incessant chatter about TRADITIONAL marriage, and warnings from so many religions that gay marriage will erode and destroy the very fabric of society, I sure had a few eye openers in the last few weeks. While my partner and I exchanged Christmas cards, party invitations, fruitcakes, and year round graciousness with most of the neighbors on the street, one fairly new TRADITIONAL family moved in. They were of course blessed and encouraged at a huge socially approved and sanctioned wedding, got right to the Santorumness of having their first two children, and launched almost immediately into screaming battles that shook the potted palms on our gentile front veranda all summer long.

The Mrs. seems to have the sharpest tongue...(another single guy on the block thinks she must have gotten her degree in Emasculization )....she can cut him to the core, while he seems mostly in the self protection mode. The kids are about 2 and 8 maybe, and when Woof and I take our nightly stroll, we always see two TV's on....one upstairs and one downstairs, and Woof puts her ears back many a night as a few howls emerge from the above mentioned TRADITIONAL homestead.

Now comes the payoff. Last year the Mr. went all out decorating for Christmas....lights like the Griswalds all over the house...lit up for about a week early in December, then turned off..never to flash again all through the holidays because they had a bigger fight than usual. Now this year, just before we gay guys were about to gather our eighteen relatives to the dinner table, my good buddy went out to the front porch and saw Mr. TRADITIONAL neighbor drag the Christmas TREE out the front door and toss it into the yard. Now mind you, this was Christmas Day....of course they were arguing, and while I could care less about the two of them, what about those two little kids? Talk about a memory that will probably never cease to torture them, I wish they'd just get a damn divorce and spare the kids the trauma of their lives with these two.

Somehow....my endless struggle for equal rights to marriage for gay people has become even more determined. I would imagine that most people would rather have my partner and I for neighbors, and that the kids across the street just might have been better off with two Dads.