Gay Marriage Effects Neighbors

It appears that, contrary to what you’ve heard about gay marriage not effecting “straights”, gay marriage has already cost one guy his job.

After five years, Skip thought his reappointment to the Board of Fire
Engineers would be routine. Then Selectman Paul Asher-Best spoke up:
“Recent action you took, Mr. Childs, indicates to me that you think
that gay people are less than fully human, and not entitled to all the
civil rights that are afforded to them. The Supreme Judicial Court
talks about marriage rights being a basic civil right. … I need …
assurance from you that you would offer equal protection to everyone in
Truro, including households headed by gay or lesbian people, because to
me your action speaks otherwise.”

Skip is scratching his head at this point. How could signing a marriage
petition make you unfit to rescue people? He tried to be conciliatory:
“I’m more concerned that a special interest group with a strong lobby
would be able to influence a judge in our state. … I wouldn’t have a
problem with it if it passed on the referendum.”

But with that comment, Paul Asher-Best went ballistic. As Asher-Best
later told me, “I consider myself one half of a loving couple who has
been together 27 years. I don’t consider myself a special interest.

“Mr. Childs’ explanation, just like I said, amplifies his bias,” he
pronounced, “and I think for that reason I couldn’t support him.”

The town council voted for a new Board of Fire Engineers, minus Skip
Childs. The Childses were humiliated. After nearly a decade of
volunteering every spare hour to rescue your neighbors, this is your
reward? Dressed down as a bigot in public for signing a marriage
petition?

Paul Asher-Best is certainly not repentant. “To me, it reminds me of
when back in the bad old days when a black man even looking a white man
in the eye was an offense. I feel like this ‘uppity f——‘ had the
nerve to look a straight guy in the eye and ask him to explain himself.
If the issue is interracial marriage, would questioning him on
attitudes toward black people be so out of line?”

Paul Asher-Best is no villain. He’s a good man with a bad idea: People
who disagree with him on gay marriage demonstrate irrational hatred
toward gay people. After all, that is what the Massachusetts high court
actually ruled.

Skip is hopeful that when a new position opens up in June, he will be allowed again to serve. I hope so too.

But two ideas are clearly now on a collision course in America: 1)
There’s something special about unions of husbands and wives, and 2)
there’s no difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and
only hate-filled bigots think otherwise. In Massachusetts, the second
idea is now the official view of the law.

Skip Childs is one of the first casualties of this new conflict. But as
our senators debate a Marriage Protection Amendment June 5, they should
be forewarned: If they leave marriage to the courts, he won’t be the
last.