Will I Marry Her

A Barbie and a Ken doll--complete with their two babies and a dog from my favorite aunt when I was seven years old--are the Christmas presents I most vividly remember from my childhood. This image of family influenced my vision of the future for many years to come. I believed that by the time I was twenty-five, I would look like Barbie and have her "two-kids-and-a-dog" life. This is hardly a paper about a ruined life and image because of a plastic, yet beautiful, doll; rather, it is a look at how the image of family, even Barbie's family, has shaped my reality. Even as late as this year, I bought a dog shortly after my twenty-fifth birthday. Something is still missing, and although I am glad that I finally know that it is not Ken I long for, I struggle with the issue of how to realize my image of family. At the age of eighteen, while visiting a friend in college, a remarkable turning point occurred in my life. During a short walk with my friend she explained that she wanted me to meet a friend of hers, but she wanted to "warn" me about her first. She had to warn me, she explained, because the girl that I would be meeting was gay. I considered myself very open-minded but I had never met anyone that was gay, so my stereotyping of her began instantly, without even realizing it. I wondered what she would look like, what she would be like, and I was a little scared of the unfamiliar that I would soon encounter. In Twelve Angry Men, we meet a juror who comments, "You know how 'those people' are!" In the film, this stereotype may have sent someone to death because the juror had a prejudice against a group of people they did not know. This was my fist thought upon hearing that I would be meeting someone that was gay: 'those people.' This prejudice did nothing but distort the truth and place an unfair label on someone. If I hadn't overcome it, my life would be very different today. On the walk back to my friend's apartment, she explained to me that "the gay girl" thought that I was beautiful. I cringed and suddenly became extremely uncomfortable about the prospect of seeing her again. How could another girl look at me that way? When she explained that I should take it as a compliment and nothing more, I realized how unfair and even closed-minded I was being. When I saw "the gay girl" that day and again the next day, we spent some time together and seemed to connect in a way I hadn't ever connected with anyone. That night, I couldn't figure out why I was still there, still spending time with her, inexplicably drawn to her; she was gay. I began getting feelings I had never had before; suddenly wondering what my feelings were, what they meant and if it was okay to feel them. All of these thoughts were ringing in my head so much that when "the gay girl" kissed me I did absolutely nothing in return; I continued thinking about all the whys, whats, and hows. Worried about how I might become someone or something else. Fortunately, I finally kissed Nikki in return. I was not supposed to fall in love with a girl, but I did, and doing so has taught me more about love, acceptance, society and myself than any other experience in my life. Recently, the issue of gay couples' rights to marry has raised much controversy. Over 60% of the population does not believe that gay couples should have the right to marry, but those that agree and disagree with gay marriage are all voicing loud protests against one another. President Bush is currently attempting to pass a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Most proponents of this amendment hold marriage as a sacred religious ceremony. Ritual, as defined by Randall Collins is a "'stereotyped sequence of gestures and sounds'... that make emotions more intense, and commit them more strongly to views of reality..." (Wallace and Wolf, 148). Those who are against gay marriage hold this view of a sacred ritual with family and friends. …