My first gay wedding

My friends Doug and Michael got married yesterday on Long Island. No, New York has not legalised gay marriage just yet: they got formally hitched in Masachussetts and held another ceremony at a friends house just outside Southampton. It was a big farm house, with a swimming pool, barns and stables, and some bemused-looking horses just next to the field where the ceremony took place. Hmm, I could see them thinking. Two grooms. Never seen that before. Needless to say, there were tears and laughter and kids and speeches and proud parents and bad dancing and great music and drinking and apple pie and some fire-eaters which you don't see every day. Did I feel like the institution of marriage was weakened, or my own marriage in any way threatened? Of course not; it felt strengthened, as it always is when friends of yours go through the same experience as you. If anything, I made me realise how completely stuck for an answer I would be if Doug or Michael or any other of my gay friends asked me the reason that I could get married and they couldn't. I mean honestly. What could I possibly say to them? How would that sentence begin? I'm better than you? Better at sex? Opposite attract? Finders keepers? Really. My head is as empty as a beach-ball. I'm curious: what arguments have people been using?