It's going to take generations of gay people marrying before these things start to feel natural. We haven't had it long enough to remake it as our own, so it does feel like you're getting dressed up in straight drag to do it.
Interpretation
Acceptance and normalization of gay marriage will take time and societal change.
Dan Savage reflects on the evolving nature of gay marriage, suggesting that true acceptance will require generations. He indicates that current attempts at normalization may feel superficial, as there hasn't been enough time for gay marriage to become an integral part of society.
In practice
During a Pride event, to highlight the ongoing struggle for equal rights.
When I was in high school I got involved in the fringe theater scene in Chicago, and I met some openly gay people. I could see that it got better, that they were happy and loved and supported. I saw with my own eyes that it got better.
My dad was a homicide cop in the gay neighborhood in the city when gay neighborhoods were desperate, depressing, sad places run by the mob. The only gay people he'd met when I came out to him were corpses.
A huge part of what animates homophobia among young people is paranoia and fear of their own capacity to be gay themselves.
And that really captures the difference for the bullied straight kid versus the bullied gay kid, is that the bullied straight kid goes home to a shoulder to cry on and support and can talk freely about his experience at school and why he's being bullied. [...] And I couldn't go home and open up to my parents.
A lot of kids are bullied because of their sexual identity or expression. It's often the effeminate boys and the masculine girls, the ones who violate gender norms and expectations, who get bullied.
Like it or not children are being raised by gay and lesbian parents all over America - as many as 10 million children. And it does nothing to make their lives more stable and secure to attack their families, to attack their parents to prevent us from marrying each other.
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
Gays and lesbians are our friends, neighbors, doctors, colleagues, sisters and brothers.
I don't dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it's gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin' White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It's connected to where you are today.
A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.
It’s amazing how lonely you can feel and like nobody understands…The moment you are vulnerable, someone always reaches out….They go through the same things. I want them to feel comfortable knowing that I have flaws as wells. I want them to know those flaws. I’m afraid of the pedestal…I want to be a peer to my fans
My father wasn't around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, 'Why me? Why don't I have a father? Why isn't he around? Why did he leave my mother?' But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, 'I don't know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?'
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