Homosexuals love drama.

[August 23rd, 2006] "Homosexuals love drama." Or so sayeth the homosexual in my cab. He's had a long day, despite the fact that it's his birthday, and now he wants to go out. However, his boyfriend did not.

We discuss the drama issue. He called his boyfriend a few minutes ago, and apparently the boyfriend who did not want to go out, did, in fact, go out, and was then witness to an assault. My passenger is on the way with cigarettes and a willing ear to hear about what happened.

"Give him some credit," I say. "I mean, that's externally imposed drama as opposed to internally generated drama."

"That's very true," he says. So we discuss other drama-inducing things, like gay marriage and the fight over Measure 36, which banned it in Oregon. He thinks maybe the problem is the word "marriage," and that if gays just asked for civil unions they'd be all right.

"Yeah, but the problem is that marriage offers something like a thousand different legal benefits. To make civil unions have a similar effect requires changing a thousand laws rather than one. And marriage is increasingly a secular, civil affair anyway."

He's not too sure about the latter part, but we both agree, sadly, that the fundamentalists won't be satisfied just denying homosexuals the right to marry—they don't want to grant them the right to exist. We finally pull up to his destination, and I say it's on me. "Consider it a birthday present."