The leaves are turning, the weather is becoming tolerable. Fall is most definitely my favorite season.


It’s also wedding season- I’ve been to two in the last two weeks, having beared witness to two of the coolest guys I know marry their loved ones. Not each other, but more on that in a bit...


What’s great about weddings is the mix of people. The first wedding, everyone I knew there- including the bride and groom- was through Bella Morte. Most of the local music were present, and I even got an ego stroke for my hard work in Synthetic Division.


Then this past weekend, Gwenn and I traveled away from the homestead to Connecticut, where I saw one of my thinblooded positoid brothers (brother in shared medical history, that is) get hitched. There, the familiar faces I saw were from hemophilia conferences, and Gwenn and I shared a table with five strangers who became fast friends- one was even a thinblood. Whereas at the first wedding, you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a musician, at the second you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a thinblood.


Unsurprisingly, throwing rocks would have been frowned upon at the wedding in Connecticut, where, once again, I got an ego stroke at a wedding. This time for My Pet Virus.


“You’re the guy who wrote that?” I was asked. “I have that book!”


Where am I going with this? Well, recently I got a message from someone who read my book who wasn’t happy that they’d gone to www.mypetvirus.com, which led them to a blog (here)where I was writing about- gasp!- politics.


“UGGGGGGH!” Was the first word of the message.


Well, in the last year I’ve been thinking about politics a lot. And during the Vice Presidential debate, I was upset to see both candidates take an unnecessary shot at the gay community. “I don’t support same sex marriage.” “I don’t either.”


It upset me, but then I got distracted by everything that followed, until the weddings reminded me of how unfortunate it is that people invest so much energy in either discriminating against others, or pandering to those who do. I don’t get it.


Some would say it’s because I don’t have kids.


Recently opponent of gay marriage said that it would be too hard to explain to a child. It’s the same mentality some have about talking about sex with teenagers, where the issue is more about an adult being uncomfortable than a child’s ability to apply reason to a very simple notion. In the case of gay marriage, it’s very simple: does everyone have the right to express their love for a fellow human in the same manner?


My two buddies, had they been born with an eye for the same sex, would have made a brilliant couple, for instance. To think that they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have a wedding seems to be a great injustice to me.


It’s about a hopefully dying notion that unmarried couple aren’t legitimate. I know a lot of legit couples, of same-sex and opposite-sex stylings, who have been together longer than Gwenn and I have known each other, who for legal or their own decision have chosen not to get married. And that’s totally cool, too.


I just think everyone should have the opportunity to throw a big party- and call it a “wedding”- to celebrate that relationship should they choose to do so.


Positively Yours,

Shawn