I've been amazed by so many things as of late. I was amazed when the Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law last year. I was amazed by the recent Massachusetts court decision saying that gay marriage could not be prohibited under the state constitution. And I was amazed when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom began marrying same-sex couples a few weeks back. Maybe, I thought, this country is not totally, mind-numbingly hopeless after all.

Then Doug Mays, the illustrious speaker of the Kansas House, announced that gays and lesbians in Kansas should not expect their state to follow the example of Massachusetts. Oh, you think? I bet the gays and lesbians of Kansas had NO IDEA that Kansas would fight this enlightened stance kicking and screaming. I bet Doug's little announcement shocked them to the core. I mean, this state is so progressive, who would have thought? Look folks, the presidential candidates never come here because there is no question about which way the state will vote. If a cardboard cutout of Napoleon ran under the Republican ticket, we'd vote for it. I'm grateful to be living in Lawrence, which is a bastion of progressivism, but I know for a fact that gays and lesbians in this city are under no illusion about how the remainder of the state views their lifestyle. Concealment is a way of life here, which is unforgivable and sad. In fact, I think this bull-headed, anti-gay business is on par with when Kansas tried to ban the teaching of evolution in schools. The whole world laughed at us (rightfully so), and most Kansans didn't even blush.

This place makes me crazy sometimes.

In Canada, gay marriage has been legal since last June. But, as usual, America is mired down in all sorts of self-righteous objections to this imminently sensible and humane step. Meanwhile, Europe looks on in amusement as we make a huge production about the exposure of a mammary gland. How is it that the human body, and what is done with it, came to be obscene, when every day our kids are exposed to a "Clockwork Orange" world of violence and murder on prime-time television? Which do you think is more harmful?

Not long ago, Nick and I rented a critically acclaimed French film called Romance, in which sex is depicted matter-of-factly, genitals and all. Because we rented it from Blockbuster, however, all the "graphic" scenes were heavily edited or simply cut out, and what was left didn't make any sense. It certainly didn't convey what was supposed to be conveyed. The meaning was totally lost. We rented it again from a "real" video store, and were amazed at the difference. The sex shown was in no way violent or offensive—just realistic. And it occurred to me that this is why Americans don't generally write books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in which sex is used both as a literal device and as a metaphor for spiritual questing. We can't see the truth behind things because we're too busy giggling. Our literary (and cinematic) depictions of sex are always based on what is puerile and titillating, not what is realistic. And in these depictions, those few libertines who dare to trample the social mores of the time may find temporary gratification, but they will always be punished for their choices in the end. This is why Americans, and why women, in particular, grow up thinking there is something wrong with their bodies. This is why authentic emotional intimacy is so difficult for couples in America.

Americans are so weird about sex, especially gay sex. I have never understood how people can say that gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. How does it erode away anything except for our collective ignorance? Furthermore, it hasn't escaped my attention that this issue has compelled all sorts of previously secular people to begin using words like "sacred," as if there haven't been plenty of heterosexual people who've made a mockery of marriage. For most people in this country, marriage has long been a secular institution. So why on earth should we forbid two people who love each other from making the formal, symbolic commitment the rest of us take for granted? And if it is about religion, then why not subject heterosexual couples to the same scrutiny, refusing to marry them unless they can demonstrate an unequivocal spirituality? I think the anti-gay marriage stance must be partly derived from the idea of marriage as being an institution designed exclusively for procreation (which means that, as a married person without kids, I'm a degenerate, too). I'm tempted to say it's also an economic issue, because more married people means more benefits businesses will have to shell out for spouses. I don't know.

Why do so many Americans continue to believe that "separate but unequal" is an acceptable response to this issue? It seems we're still living the legacy of "Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education," in which proponents of a different kind of segregation subjected the country to their regressive ideologies.

I hate to sound like the bleeding-heart, hippie idealist I am, but it seems clear to me that people don't get anywhere by emphasizing their differences. The only time we can make progress is when we look at the things that make us the same. So come on, America, let's pull it together before the world leaves us behind, and we become a mirror of the kind of repressive, fundamentalist cultures we love to condemn.

"Without contraries is no progression." —William Blake