The Gospel According to Marc:  

"When are you going to write about Cool Straight People?"

My friend Joan asks me this every time I run into her, usually at a premiere or a gay charity event. You see, despite being straight, Joan and her husband Randy give more support to gays than a 2(x)ist Y-back thong.

Cool Straight People come in lots of flavors: the PFLAG mom making tofu nut loaf for the lesbian potluck, the hetero hottie who pinches your butt on the dance floor, the groovy grandpa reminiscing about World War II with a vet in a sequined ball gown.

I’m lucky to know dozens of such people including Joe, the straight owner of Ziva Salon, where I get my hair cut. Joe was so excited when I got married in Canada last year that he handed me a $100 gift certificate for hair and skin products: in other words, The Gayest Wedding Gift Ever.

Or my buddy Shannon in LA, who described sending flowers anonymously to a couple on line in San Francisco as "the coolest thing I’ve ever done," which, considering her rocker-chick past, is no small achievement.

Or Sam, my 84-year-old father-in-law (or perhaps I should say "out-law"), who continues to write epic letters to the editor on behalf of me and Floyd.

What makes these people cool is not that they’re so comfortable with us that they forget we’re gay, but that we’re so comfortable with them that we forget they’re not. (And a good thing, too.

Do you have any idea what heterosexuals do in bed together?)

Others setting the gay record straight are The New York Times’ Frank Rich, once derided by bitchy queens as "The Butcher of Broadway" and now transformed into "The Writer of Wrongs" for his insightful commentary on the not-so-right wing. Or Coretta Scott King, who called the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages "a form of gay bashing." Or Bette Midler, whose (purported) letter to the president has been forwarded to me more times than that request for funds from a Nigerian businessman.

Then there are politicians like Robert Havern, a state senator in Massachusetts, who said that those who are uncomfortable with gay sex should endorse gay marriage, because everyone knows that "after marriage, there is no sex."

LOVE him.

Of course, there’s Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, who is as brave as he is totally cute, or Jason West, the mayor of New Paltz, NY, who doesn’t even look old enough to order a drink, let alone officiate a marriage.

And here in Oregon, we have the Multnomah County Commissioners or, as I prefer to call them, the Fab Four.

Like Mayors Newsom and West, these courageous women have been roundly criticized for not including the public in what has come to be known as the "Wednesday Morning Surprise," which is just another way of our opponents saying they’re pissed they didn’t get to stop it.

Critics are calling Multnomah County "a government by the people, for the people, by four people." The Oregonian has even gone so far as to demand their recall.

But the Fab Four understood that you simply cannot put civil rights to a popular vote. As Dr. Ellen Scheiner of Berkley, California said, "No majority voted Rosa Parks to the front of the bus. She had to do that for herself."

The morning the commissioners decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was history-making for Oregon, in part because the rest of the world finally learned how to spell "Multnomah."

(Is it just me, or does my county sound like an internal organ? "I’m sorry, but your multnomah is badly inflamed.")

Floyd and I got up at Dark O’Clock that morning to get a good place in line, only to discover that—poof—our Canadian marriage was now legally recognized in Portland.

But there was no place I would rather have been. Seeing hundreds of people rounding the block reminded me of the South Africans who lined up to vote for the first time. Or Madonna fans lining up for tickets.

The commissioners took a lot of heat at their press conference; they looked as nervous as the contestants heading into the boardroom on The Apprentice.

But I believe history will be kind to the Fab Four, and when the books are written about the civil rights heroes of our day, these names will be writ large:

DIANE LINN
SERENA CRUZ
LISA NAITO
MARIA ROJO DE STEFFEY

So, I ask you, dear readers, take a moment and send this article to your favorite Cool Straight Person with your thanks. Remember, we can’t win this battle without them.

And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc.