There is virtually no way of knowing when the idea of same-sex marriage was first concocted, as it would have been the sort of thing kept so far in the closet that Narnia would have trouble finding it. The first I ever heard of it was in the early 70’s, when it was rumoured that actor-singer Jim Nabors, of “Gomer Pyle” fame, had married film star Rock Hudson. The only thing anyone had to go on (and the National Enquirer chose to run with it) was a photo of the two of them together in a night club. It should have been easy to detect as a hoax, especially since the story behind it was that Hudson was going to be the wife in this union, and would change his name to “Rock Pyle.” Funny, but it undermines any crediblility of such a story. To quash the rumor and save their reputations amidst a mostly homophobic Hollywood, Nabors and Hudson, who were indeed friends and insisted they were nothing more, agreed to not see each other again.

                Forty years later, Hudson has of course been gone since 1986, the first public icon to add a recognizable face to the AIDS epidemic, and thus increase general concerns over it. Nabors is still around at age 82, and is now preparing to marry his lover of 38 years, which would mean the pair connected shortly after the Nabors-Hudson rumors surfaced. He joins Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jane Lynch (“Glee”) on the list of celebrities who’ve publicly and legally married their long-term lovers.

                   The progress made in that time is pretty impressive, for I must admit that when I first lived in San Francisco, I would see same-sex couples holding hands and think they were weird or misguided. The key ingredient, aside from common sense, is education. You eventually learn that people who are gay didn’t CHOOSE to be so. It just fucking happens, and it’s nothing that needs to be “cured,” despite the endless assertions from the Religious Right. Gay marriage is now legal in 9 US states plus Washington DC and parts of California (still not sure how Iowa became one of those nine), and most central European countries.

                England became the latest to step forward, and I guess the most surprising thing about yesterday’s passage of the amendment in the House of Commons was that Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, is the one who submitted the bill for the vote. He got plenty of support from Labour and Liberal-Democrat factions, but 134 Tories voted against, with 25 abstaining, though few of his non-supporters went on any kind of biblical rant, so much as to question the re-defining of what marriage is. Many also questioned (and I would also to some degree) why this issue was so much in the forefront of Cameron’s agenda when the nation just barely avoided a triple-dip recession. The bill will now be sent to House of Lords, where it’s also expected to pass. Heaven help Barack Obama if he EVER tried to initiate a bill like this through the current Congress. The arguments would start with Adam & Steve, and go downhill from there.