By Jack Nettleton ’13
We are fast approaching every political nerd’s favorite holiday, Election Day. I am one of those nerds – every major election I sit glued to the television. Election Day is exciting, but not only because American democracy is hard at work. Election Day is exciting because every election could be historic; it is those historic elections that change the course of this great country.
This year, voters in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington have the chance to do something historic. Never has a state affirmed gay marriage by way of state wide popular vote. Each of the 32 times it has been on a statewide ballot in United States it has been turned down. As a Washington voter, I feel blessed to have an opportunity to make such history.
That is why I can say there was not one vote I was more proud to make this year than the one approving Referendum 74 in Washington state in support of marriage equality. The next question is obvious, “Jack, you are a straight college-age male, why does marriage equality matter to you?” Well, this summer I had the privilege to work on Derek Kilmer’s congressional campaign. When Derek would speak about his desire to protect Social Security and Medicare, he explained that for his family the debate is “not a theoretical policy discussion, it’s real”. For my family, marriage equality has real implications.
I hope my personal story shows the importance for young, straight men to support marriage equality and that approving marriage equality is an important step forward for civil rights in this country. Every study shows that personal stories and relationships help change people’s hearts and minds on marriage equality. The more humanized the debate becomes, the more likely people will change their minds and in time, voice their support.
The best persuasive writers do three things: hook you in the beginning, persuade you in the middle and bring you home at the end. The funny thing is that when you look at my personal journey to accepting marriage equality, my friends and family persuaded me in the same way.
I was hooked in the beginning, unsuspectingly and unwillingly, with the divorce of my two parents when I was in the 1st grade. “Daddy just doesn’t love Mommy anymore” she said, to which I responded, “I am never smiling again”. The divorce hit me hard, however it ended up not being the hardest thing I had to deal with going forward.
By the time I was able to comprehend the concept of it, my father had moved in with his new partner, Bryan. Yes, my father is gay. From middle school until now I have struggled with that very fact, deliberately hiding my father’s sexuality from my friends and people around me. I’ve always loved my father dearly, but nothing scared me more than my friends, classmates and teammates thinking of me differently because of my father’s sexuality. To this day I still haven’t told many of my best friends, a fact I continuously feel guilty about.
Preserve Marriage Washington (the group opposed to Referendum 74) argues in its literature that traditional marriage matters because “Marriage is society’s mechanism of increasing the likelihood that children will be born and raised by the two people responsible for bringing them into the world – their mother and father“. These traditional “family values” are supposed to be what I missed out on growing up. My upbringing was different: divorce brought me four parents, three dads, two households and the single best family I have could ever asked for.
I am proof that it doesn’t matter if you are raised in a traditional family or a gay family, and why arguments by people who oppose marriage equality simply do not make sense. The most comprehensive study of parenting conducted by Judith Stacey and Tim Biblarz in 2010 found that the gender of the parents played no major role in a child’s upbringing. If it were true that based on my upbringing I was less likely to value the roll that marriage plays in society, I suspect my life goals would be much different. Instead my goals in life are simple; marry a woman I love, start a family, provide for that family, have two kids and live in a house with a view. Yes, my family is anything but “normal”, but when I think of a word to describe them, I can’t think of anything but “perfect”.
My upbringing has directly shaped who I am today. I relish the opportunity to share with my children how strong my amazing mother was raising three young boys before my incredibly loving stepfather came into our family. I try to replicate my mother’s strength and moral compass every day. She selflessly provides the opportunity for all of her children to go for their dreams. My stepfather is hilarious and my favorite golf partner, but it is the support of his stepchildren and love for every member of his family I admire the most.
My children will know exactly how much the gay members of my family have made me a better person. My father is a model of humility and kindness; he shares my passion for good beer and still edits my papers even at late hours. He and his partner Bryan harp on my terrible table manners and educate me on what it means to be a gentleman. My brother courageously came out at a young age in high school and is now wildly successful in theatre. He is the funniest, most talented, most courageous person I know. I could go on for paragraphs about how much I admire my family. Every member, gay or straight, has convinced me that civil marriage should not be defined as one man, one woman, but rather as two people, love and commitment.
Which brings me home, literally. The setting was a beautiful, sunny Seattle summer evening at my Dad’s house with my two other brothers from my father along with my dad’s partner and his two kids. We all ate at the outside dinner table (I set it to my father’s strict regulations), as a family, and talked about marriage. First was my step-brother Grant, who was just about to propose to his long time girlfriend and my Dad and Bryan, who talked about getting married if Referendum 74 passes. It struck me during dinner how special marriage was to everyone, and how it wasn’t gender that mattered but rather their deep desire for society to recognize love and commitment regardless of who they loved and who they were. Marriage is a civil right, and it is time we stop treating our gay friends and family as second class citizens. I am already going to one wedding soon, I urge the voters of Washington to make it two.