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Staunch straight ally Rob Thomas writes about “the gay chip on my shoulder”

Rob Thomas

Singer Rob Thomas used to just be someone I thought was awfully cute and sang awfully well. He’s turning out to be a very passionate and articulate defender of gay rights and his words in an article he wrote for Huffington Post today moved me greatly.

Here is an excerpt:

I am a straight man, with a big gay chip on my shoulder.

A while back on my Twitter page (yes, I know how ridiculous it sounds), I mentioned that, if I believed in the devil, Pat Robertson might be him.

Being a fairly liberal-leaning guy with either liberal friends or Republican and Christian friends who don’t believe that being one has anything to do with the other, I was surprised at how many people took offense to what I had to say.

These people weren’t friends of Mr. Robertson but friends, apparently, of God. They had “spoken” with him and he had assured them that he was no friend of the gays. He also told them that he loved America more than any other country and was a huge fan of Dancing With the Stars.

The small controversy or “Twitter-versy” (patent on phrase pending) all started when I had made the mistake of asking why two people of the same sex shouldn’t be able to make the same life-long commitment and (more importantly) under the same god, as straight people. Why can’t my gay friends be as happily married as my wife and I? It seemed simple to me, but let me start off by telling you a series of things that I believe to be true:

I am a person who believes that people are born gay. I don’t think you have any control over what moves you or to whom you’re attracted. That’s why it’s called an attraction and not a choice.

http://www.nndb.com/people/383/000098089/rob-thomas-1.jpg

I believe that America is a great nation of even greater people. I also believe that anyone who says that this is a “Christian nation” has RHS, or revisionist history syndrome, and doesn’t realize that most of our founding fathers were either atheist or at least could see, even in the 1700s, that all through Europe at the time, religion was the cause of so much persecution that they needed to put into their brand new constitution a SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE so that the ideals of a group of people could never be forced onto the whole. (I also find it funny when people point out to me that it says “one nation under god” in our pledge of allegiance, not realizing that this was an addition made in 1954 during the communism scare of the McCarthy era. It’s not surprising, however, knowing that these same people would punch me in the mouth if I called Jesus a Jew.)

… The support of legalizing gay marriage is in no way meant to change the ideals of the section of Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin. But we should refuse to let other people’s ideals shape the way we live our lives. Each of us has a short ride on this earth and as long as we stay in our lane, and don’t affect someone else’s ride, we should be allowed to drive as we see fit.

FILE UNDER: Gay Marriage, Music

Comments

(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)

3 Remarks

  1. May 27th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
    @bigolpoofter says:

    I loves me some Rob Thomas, now more than ever!

  2. May 27th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
    David in Houston says:

    What an awesome commentary… and what an awesome guy he is!

  3. This commentary was incredibly articulate and eloquent. Part of the article you left out for space included this, which I thought was the best way of expressing this particular point:

    “I’ve heard it said before, many times, that if two men or two women are allowed to join into a civil union together, why can’t they be happy with that and why is it so important that they call it marriage? In essence, what’s in a name?

    A civil union has to do with death. It’s essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It’s about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of “separate but equal” and we know how that works out.”

    touche.

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