Star Stricken
By Yvonne Zipter

Can you feel the love? I know I can. In amongst all the hate—emanating from bigots, warmongers, so-called Christians, and terrorists—the subject of gay marriage has caused people from all walks of life to pour forth love. Take the special music issue of the Advocate from this past spring, for instance, which solicited quotes from hetero stars of the music industry about gay marriage. Little hearts practically floated up from the pages when you turned to that section. Everyone from Renee Fleming to one of the Bare Naked Ladies' guys came down on the side of love—and equal rights.

As I read the pages and pages of quotes—even those from people I would be forced to admit I'd never heard of before—I was giddy with good feeling. Who wouldn't feel all warm and fuzzy to hear singer/songwriter Lou Reed say, "It's hard to believe in the year 2004, with Americans being killed in Iraq, with civilians killed in Madrid, that these despicable assholes would conjure up the sanctity of marriage blather. This is a nonissue promulgated by thieves and religious zealots to imprison contemporary people in the prison of the medieval mind. They should just call it the Mel Gibson amendment"?

And though my joy was tempered a bit when I realized that rapper/actor Ice-T is more knowledgeable than Ice-W—"This fuckin' government is stupid as shit. Instead of dealing with real issues like homelessness, unemployment, and money being taken from schools, they waste time trying to stop gay marriage. Isn't there supposed to be a separation of church and state? If this country is so free, you should be able to marry a rock if you want to"—I basked in the glow of love. I wanted to send each of them a Whitman Sampler. "Dear Midori," I would write to the violinist, "You have my undying devotion."

But in the midst of savoring this outpouring of clear thinking and support, I was struck by the thought, "Why do I care so much about what celebrities think?" It's weird in this country—almost as if we don't know what to think about, say, the war in Iraq until we've gotten Matthew Perry's opinion or about the death penalty until Carmen Diaz has weighed in. How absurd is it that we even care what Kenny Rogers thinks about gay marriage? We might as well find out what our favorite cartoon characters think! And suddenly, given that Elmer Fudd is running the country, this didn't seem like such a far-fetched idea.

Homer Simpson and Pepe LePew—those icons of heterosexual love—were unfortunately unavailable for comment. But Nicole Hollander, the woman behind Sylvia, tells me that "Sylvia's excited. She's taken out her long dresses and her boas. . . . She has a lot of weddings to go to and she sees more in her future. There's no stopping this wave. She's keeping a record of the states in which she's attended gay marriages—she's hoping to visit every state. It's just a matter of time, and of course like every victory for civil rights we will wonder why it took so long and soon there will be generations of students who look mystified when we say there was a time when marriages between women and women and men and men were forbidden. 'You must be kidding!' they will say, in their slightly patronizing way." And Aiden, the raccoon of Jeff Kun's ClosetCoon, feels that "if two guys love each other, why shouldn't they be able to marry? It shouldn't matter that they're both guys, or that one's a raccoon and one's a fox. Why shouldn't we . . . um . . . I mean, they be allowed to marry?"

But even among cartoon characters, there is not unilateral agreement on the subject. Mo, of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, has said, "I won't be complicit with the enshrinement of coupledom as a privileged civic status"—which caused her partner Sydney to retort, "Right. You've so enshrined your own oppression as a privileged civic status, equality would be a downgrade." Bedfellows make strange politics? Frazz's creator Jef Mallett, who describes himself as "obnoxious in person" when it comes to fighting for equality, says: "Frazz and Caulfield show their opinions much more subtly than I do. [To them,] everybody's a human, first and last."

I suppose that's a good attitude to have. Still, I can't help wondering what Bert and Ernie think about gay marriage—and whether Rubber Ducky will be the best . . . man?

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