Use this thread to update the latest on the races in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Maine, and elsewhere. 

Besides the gubernatorial contests in VA and NJ and the Congressional race in New York, tonight Maine’s voters are deciding if they want to treat gays and lesbians as human beings or if they want to tell us to get to the back of the bus.  We hope after tonight we’ll be able to say “Remember Maine” and have it mean something altogether different, something intensely positive for the LGBTQ community.  

Republicans, we are telling you, it is not politically astute to stand in the way of two guys or two women who want to have the same protections, rights, and benefits that Britney Spears was afforded to someone she legally entered into a spousal contract with in Las Vegas, but then annulled herself away from the next day, once sobered up.  

And Hera knows we loves our Brit-Brit, but it’s true. 

But, please notice folks, we did not use the word “marriage” in the context above.  Deliberately.  

“Marriage” is an emotionally charged word that we personally believe is keeping millions of people from having equal rights.  As we get older around here, and we look at all of our straight friends who find someone they want to commit to and buy a house with and have a family and a dog and all sorts of other shades of stability with, we look at our own fabulous single lives and start to crave some of that stability.  Especially when we realize how impossible it will be to have all the things we want in life as single guys.  

But, we don’t insist on the word “marriage” because to us “marriage” involves a church with a steeple and inside scores of people.  Insert various mumbo jumbo, some heinous flower arranging, precocious tots chucking petals into the air with glee, and mountains of taffuta and you’ve got yourselves a “marriage” — in the sense of the word that we were raised with and that’s indelibly part of our cultural fabric. 

What we really and truly need in this country is a dramatic change for ALL Americans…a 21st Century leap forward in tandem with the invention of a cromulent new word for the joining of two people into a spousal contract that is completely in the hands of the state and not any church.  ALL couples should have to go to City Hall for “spousage”…where the City would acknowledge a legally binding contract between them that makes them in the eyes of the law SPOUSES.  It can be a man and a woman who are now spouses, like Britney and what’s-his-name from Lousiana in that church in Vegas.  It can be two men who become spouses.  It can be two women who become spouses.  Everyone’s of legal age.  Only two people are allowed to be in this spousal contract, with neither of them allowed to be the spouse of anyone else. 

And religious people can then depart City Hall to head to a church to be married, just as they always have.  The priest can don his finests reignments and gospel choirs can Hosannah on high as the whole damn town comes out to celebrate, just like they always have. 

Meanwhile, after one of us leaves City Hall, he can head over to the roofdeck at Sidetracks or the garden atop the Center on Halsted with his husband and have a great big celebration of his own, with whatever traditions the two of them want to have.  Miss Foozie can officiate it.  The Chicago Spirit Brigade could rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.  There could be strippers and drag queens and obscure B-movie actresses or pop princesses bused in for the occasion. 

And think of all the money it would pump into local economies, ’cause ain’t NOBODY know how to throw a party better than the likes of us in Boystown.  Hell, half of us are party planners to begin with. 

We know few of you out there really understand our position on all of this, but we hope someday we’ll explain it in a way that really gels.  We want to have everything we dream of in this life, including owning our own homes, having families, settling down, and ultimately phasing away from Boystown and the nonstop adventures and shenannigans and moving on, growing up, and doing all the things our straight friends get to do.  Only, we don’t want a woman at our side for all of that.  We’ll always have plenty of women as friends, and if you look at the masthead on this site you’ll see just one of the amazing women we’d go to absolute Hell and back for, but we like guys and won’t ever stop.  And that should not mean we never get to be homeowners, never get to know security and financial stability, never get to become the best, most responsible, most established citizens we can be. 

What’s standing in the way of that is the church, the temple, the mosque, the synagogue, the tinfoil space ship of Xenu. None of us want to traipse into any of those places and cause a ruckus. 

We just want — when we find a nice guy — to be able to have all the things that a drunk pop star got to have one wild night taking solemn vows before an Elvis impersonating Justice of the Peace, but then was able to “take a mulligan on” the next day. 

The semantics and religious connection of “marriage” is the problem…we’ve told you how we think it can be solved…and know we won’t ever see any progress as long as the Culture Wars rage on in this entrenched issue.

*****

UPDATE:  It’s very early, but already Virginia’s being called for McConnell, who appears to be clobbering Obama supported Deeds.  We don’t know how bad Deeds is losing yet, but it could be a very, very bad night for the Kool-Aid Gang.

UPDATE:  Republicans take New Jersey and Virginia; Bloomberg might be in trouble in New York; still waiting on the NY-23 race, but it looks like ACORN shenannigans are making a difference there.