I drive into work two days a week and work from home the other three. Will’s on summer break (for him, that means working but not going to school) and he packs a lunch for my office days. This, of course, is just more sinful homosexual behavior. Today’s big moral threat to society is a turkey sandwich, red bell pepper soup, and low-fat string cheese. But get this:
Will put the tomato slices and lettuce leaves in a separate baggie so they don’t soak the bread.
Who wouldn’t want to marry this man? I swear, next time paranoid anti-gays start asking about the real reason we want the right to marry, I ought to just show them my sandwich.
I doubt they’d understand.
That’s sweet. Where did you FIND him?
More’s to the point, Bill S, why did God (in Her infinite but inscrutible wisdom) only make one?
Guys, it’s not like he’s perfect. If I stop showering he gets grumbly around day 3.
Especially if I’ve been working out.
No, Rob, don’t show them the sandwich! Next thing you know they’ll be lobbying for a constitutional amendment to preserve the sanctity of considerate sandwich preparation between one man and one woman. It’s a slippery slope.
I thinks I can beat you: when my boyfriend and I eat take-out food, he takes the leftovers out of each carton and puts each dish’s leftovers in a separate baggie so that they don’t stink up the fridge and they’ll be fresh when we heat it up for leftovers. Then he takes the trash out so the kitchen doesn’t smell like take-out.
Your posts about Will are always so sweet. DAMN YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVE MARITAL BLISS!
That’s WONDERFUL. You’re one lucky bum.
Oh man…what’s not to love about the BOTH of you hunkmuffins?
Hey, hug Lucas for me.
I love you guys!
oh YOU.
The funny part is that the sandwich says it all, yet so many people don’t get it. The struggle is not just for the rights or the word or whatever; its for what the sandwich says.
Robtish, if I was in Will’s situation I’d just haul my guy into the shower and scrub him down myself – and let things go where they may from there onwards. So if Will’s not doing dragging you into the shower, perhaps it’s because he’s turned on by your horny three-day-old mansweat? Everyone has their secret kinks, after all.
Sometimes I wonder if anti-equality advocates are more freaked out by gay sex or gay love. It may be that the sandwich is actually more threatening. After all, if same-sex couples are willing to put in the time and effort to care for each other in ways both profound AND mundane, maybe there really isn’t anything all that special (let alone unique) about straight, married couples.
Some of this, I think, is tied to gender stereotypes more generally, the idea that a relationship needs a man and a woman to work because of inherent differences. Frankly, the example set by happily coupled gay men does a lot to take pressure off straight women to be responsible for so many of the “girly” parts of a relationship, from the emotional work to packing lunches. Thanks for that, by the way.
SNC, that’s a good point – but I think I’d word it a little differently. It’s not a case that straight relationships aren’t “anything all that special (let alone unique)”, as you put it; it’s that gay relationships aren’t not special/unique themselves.
The sandwich symbolises the fact that being gay is about more than just sex, which is what NOM et. al. want to boil it all down to. When they reduce being gay to fucking your own sex, they’re trying to eliminate the possibility of gay couples having reason to do all the other special/unique relationship stuff that doesn’t involve having sex. This stuff can range from more mundane expressions of affection, like putting a little extra effort into making a meal, to more serious sacrifices, like caring for your partner’s dying parent. These things are signs of a bond that goes way beyond mere sex.
That makes queer couples like Rob & Will, or Bryan & Jay Leffew, a real threat to groups like NOM. Every time Rob talks about Will preparing him food (this is the second or third time so far – I think Will and I need to compare recipe books!) he’s threatening the claim that gays aren’t capable of anything more than base lust, that gay people aren’t capable of the “higher emotions” we all associate with romantic love. And every time Bryan & Jay post another video about their family, they’re disproving the lie that gay love is debased; that it’s not strong enough or holy enough to raise happy, healthy, secure children; that children raised by gay parents will always turn out mentally &/or emotionally disturbed.
The truth, of course, is (if anything) the reverse of what is claimed by NOM and the rest. Marriage & divorce rate data from the UK, Netherlands and Massachusetts suggest that gay male couples are less likely to get divorced that opposite sex couples, while a recent study showed that children raised by lesbian couples are less likely to suffer from mental illnesses than children of opposite sex couples. Unfortunately I can’t see NOM letting anything so inconvenient as the truth getting in the way of a good prejudice. Which is kinda what Rob deals with on his next blog entry.
Rob when are you going to post a pic of this man you love so much so we can see him?
Here you go, Mark.
And video here.
Our big anti-family action and queer agenda is after 19 years together making a big bowl of popcorn (with butter of course) and sitting together on the sofa and watching old movies. I know that does sound radical-especially the butter part. I certainly hope we don’t break up TOO many straight marriages by our actions….
What kind of love is that? Separating the lettuce and tomato, why everyone knows real love, a heterosexical love, is when the Wonder White Bread is slathered with Miracle Whip, both pieces, as if a mortar to hold the bologna in place almost curing in the brown paper bag in the heat of the day until that first bite when upon hitting the tongue it instantly becomes a paste that lodges in the gum line of your mouth and stays there to enjoy for the rest of the day. Maggie Gallager makes the best Miracle Whip sandwiches.
See…isn’t Lucas a beautiful dog?
How is it possible not to want to marry such a man?
(I jumped here from JMG, in case you are wondering)
What SNC and tavdy70 said, got me thinking. This kicking and screaming of NOM and their ilk, yes, it seems to have something to do with their idea that the 1 man 1 woman thing is somehow special, and yes, it seems to have something to do with gender stereotypes.
Which is odd, in a way, since amongst the heterosexual couples I know, there is so many different ones… and so much that is common between them anyway. I mean to say, that heterosexual couples are neither unique each an every one, because so much is the same between so many of them, and at the same time, they are not really unique as a group, or at least not unified, because so much differs from couple to couple.
Also, so many do not conform to any gender stereotypes: Women working and men staying home to take care of the kids, both working and having carreers and never planning to have kids, men cooking or mending clothes, women driving the car and cussing like sailors, etc.
But at least they ARE man and woman, you know. If one of them doesn’t conform to a cliché, at least you KNOW they are breaking it, you know how they OUGHT to behave, even if they do not.
One thing that always infuriates me about my mum and aunts is how they always try to figure out who in a queer couple is “the female”. The idea, that in a couple, one person HAS to hold the classic male and one HAS to hold the classic female role is just too deeply seated to ever even be questioned. And when I question it, they just smile indulgently, but do not move in their conviction one inch. Luckily that thinking seems to be mostly dying out with their generation. At least in the tiny part of the world I live in.
Maybe what frightens the NOMsers – at least in part – is that same-sex marriage questions this assumption. I have to think about this strange discussion Rob reported about whether one can identify him as queer from his behaviour and body language. Maybe the idea that we are not bound in our behaviour by our chromosomes is really scary to these people. Maybe the liberty that idea brings makes them feel alone and lost in the world. If they are not defined by their gender, maybe they no longer know who they are, and how they should behave in a given situation. They would have to make up their own mind, take a stand, be actually responsible for what they do and how they act instead of hiding behind rotes and routines and hand-me-down values they are so proud to “conserve” like marmelade, by cooking it too long in too much sugar.
Sorry. It’s “tavdy79″, not “tavdy70″, of course. x_x’