The Gay Marriage Waiting Game - The Week in Gay

Joe Eskenazi

Luis Juarbe, facing camera, and Mike Reardon will just have to wait a little longer...

​This week was full of more of damn waiting. Just like last week. Last week we waited for Judge Vaughn Walker to decide that Prop. 8 was a piece of anti-American trash. This week we had to wait to find out if he wants Prop. 8 to stay in effect pending appeal or if same-sex couples can finally stop using the "colored only" drinking fountains of domestic partnership.   

The decision was supposed to be issued between 9 a.m. and noon yesterday and people were peeing in wastebaskets -- true story -- at work for fear they'd miss the breaking news if they walked away from Twitter to go to the bathroom. Finally, at about 12:30 the news broke: Walker sort of lifted the stay on his decision, but he also sort of didn't.

The waiting was hard, although the expectation was that Walker would keep his decision on hold. And that was what happened. The patriotic Americans arguing against same-sex marriage needed more time on their appeal papers and they submitted them late on Thursday. 

So now we wait (again) for this stay to expire next Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 5 p.m. to see if we get to wait some more. Let's face it: Gays were born to wait. 

Life as a gay American is just like the season-ending cliff-hangers on television. We are used to being on the edge of our seats. Suspense builds and trouble is afoot and uncertainty is everywhere. And then, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, the rebels swoop down on the church and kill everyone. 

Or so it seems. 



In the Moldavian massacre (Dynasty) there were only two deaths: Ali McGraw's character (who no one liked) and, um ... oh yeah ... Steven Carrington's boyfriend Luke. Awkward. Take comfort in the fact that while the gays continue to wait for due process and equal protection, the straights will continue to exhibit their expertise in the appropriate way to live, love and raise a family. 

Nobody does it better than the heterosexuals and this week they really showed us how they get away with flouting the tradition they impose upon us.   

Newt Gingrich's ex-wife (his second of three), Marianne, spoke to Esquire magazine about her former husband and his presidential ambitions. Marianne was the woman Newt was shacking up with while his first wife was battling cancer. Newt said that Walker's Prop. 8 decision was a "threat to our society." His ex-wife says that Newt "believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected." His inconsistency isn't a threat to society but same-sex marriage is? Newt is a born leader.