Lately, my e-mail in-box has filled over the issue of gay marriage. Sign this petition, send this on, and can-you-believe-this-article. The assumption made is: Because I'm gay, I must support gay marriage.

Wrong.

Why? Because of my general emnity toward all things cloaked with religion. I don't care about the issue of marriage (gay or straight) because I don't care for anything organized religion purports to own.

And before anyone sends me hate mail: I have been signing those petitions, I have been sending things on, and clucking my head at articles forwarded to me. Discrimination is alive and well in this country, and to the extent DOMA represents discrimination, I am opposed to it.

But rather than getting all whooped up over DOMA taking away something we already don't have, we should be campaigning instead to expand the Civil Rights Act (also a constitutional amendment) to include sexual orientation. A much better use of everyone's time, I think.

The myth of Getting Married runs too deep in this country. Whisper "I do", and suddenly trumpets sound and the gates open to a lifelong earthly paradise. It is a Get Out of Jail Free card.

In the golden olden days, Marriage meant tramps were transformed into perfect housewives; assholes became strong and silent breadwinners. These days, the myth has mutated: For thoroughly modern Millies, marriage between equals means "always communicating", "always being sensitive to the other person's needs" and "always willing to compromise". With those skills down pat, things will never go wrong.

Right?

Why, it's almost like drinking wine and having it turn into blood.

The focus, regardless of orientation, should be on commitment, not marriage. My partner of six years wanted to get married: Marriage shows you've made a commitment. And I said, Every day I wake up next to you shows I'm committed. (No jokes please.) Good thing we weren't married, because when the kitchen got hot he couldn't take the heat.

Oh, I'm expecting to hear how I'm full of internalized homophobia. Last I heard -- and only one short generation ago -- the Gay liberation movement was inventing new rules that worked for us; relationships and traditions and methods of honoring them that worked in a new world -- and not in a world that hated gays. What happened to this energy and imagination?

But my lack of support for marriage should not be misinterpreted as discrediting those who believe in the Right to Marry. Go for it, if that's what you want. Already, two sets of my closest friends have tied the civil-union knot. My best friends G & P exchanged vows in Canada last fall; and my ex-boyfriend R traveled to Vermont with his boyfriend a week or so ago. Congratulations! and I'm very happy for them.

Whether or not Canada or Vermont allowed a civil union, they could have exchanged vows to each other privately, or publicly at a party for one thousand of their closest friends. They could have said something to each other each morning they wake up next to one another.

And they still can.

My point being: The right to marry won't change a damn thing. At least not for what's truly important.