Henry Rollins: Gay Marriage Is Punk Rock

Is Mr. Rollins out of the closet yet?  Just curious.  I'm thinking no.   Man up already, Henry.  Everyone already knows.  

Wonderful man ty so much for the constant support Henry .

Affording gay and lesbians the same rights as heterosexuals is not about being politically correct, it is about equal rights under the law. It has nothing to do with religion. Last time I looked, my marriage license was issued by the state not a church. Under the law, marriage is tantamount to a business relationship. In no other "business" dealings are people of the same sex not allowed to engage in some exchange of services or not allowed to have a business relationship. It makes no sense that certain people should be precluded from engaging in a marital relationship. This does not have to do with being liberal, conservative, pc or punk. It has to do with being logical.

I'm sorry but being politcally correct has nothing to do with 'punk rock,' and if it does then I no longer want to be associated. Sadly, Henry, you're caving to the pressure of the politically correct for the sake of perserving your column. How long do you think you'd still be writing for the LA Weakly if you promoted the contrary? I won't. Those who continually assail individuals who want to identify themselves as uniquely commited to a member of the opposite sex have no respect or empathy from me. Society continually engages in the practice of denegrating any individual who wishes to uniquely identify themselves or ascribe to a unique ideology and insists that all people can be all things, and this simply isn't factual. It's a sad day when a bastion of individuality gets in line with the rest of the sheep and says, 'Yeah, we are all the same, we are all equal.' This is a fantasical perception of that which is not.

Hero!

Thank you, Henry.

Thanks, Henry.

In general, the arguments against gay marriage stem from religious perspectives, probably because for most of the history of Western thought, marriage has been a religious institution--and now, it seems like a holdover from Henry VIII's break from the Catholic church. Constitutionally, if we really want to adhere to the 'separation of church and state' clause, the sanctioning of marriage should be replaced with civil unions for all, leaving marriage in the domain of religious organizations. In this situation, legally sanctioned marriages would shift to civil unions, and they would hold the same legal and social benefits that marriages currently hold (and marriage would hold none of those legal benefits). 

Basically, this public debate (if you can call it that) has had a difficult time making up any ground until recently (as in Washington state), but a lot more headway could be made if we started looking at the issue from another angle.

On a semi-related side note, I crack up laughing every time I listen to your bit about living in a duplex/apartment next to a group of gay men, and how you'd encourage them by playing death metal at full blast so that they could hear it through the paper-thin walls. A friend and I went in on a two-disc DVD and two CDs of your standup where you talked about it. And your '06/'07 show in Philly had some really entertaining and enlightening thoughts on the subject (through a comedic lens).