Punk rock pioneer Henry Rollins is hopeful that one day soon our country will progress enough to alter the terms "marriage equality" and "same-sex marriage" to the more simple and inclusive "marriage."
The veteran musician-actor, who is also a longtime advocate for LGBT equality, writes in the L.A. Weekly about the the excitement of same-sex couples being legally wed in Washington state. "I am elated as much as I am frustrated by why this country refuses to wake up and smell the 14th Amendment of the Constitution," adding that there is still a long way to go.
"Marriage equality is a term so ridiculous on its face that when you hear it mentioned, you would think you were in Riyadh," Rollins explains. "Years from now, perhaps we can lose the equality part, the same-sex part and call it what it is -- marriage. As much as the homophobes, an ever-thinning herd, whines and screeches, the earth is shifting underneath their feet and things are getting better all the time."
Rollins reflects on his punk rock past, when he fronted the seminal Los Angeles band Black Flag, and creates an analogy of sorts between the movement and the struggle for marriage equality. "The fact that there were so many gay people in punk bands, I think, really gave the music an incredible dynamic," he writes. "Frustration and emotion were expressed without orientation clauses; all you needed was to be was alive to be a part of it."
He even makes a prediction. "One day, there will be no gay-pride parades because there simply won't be a need for them," Rollins writes optimistically in the op-ed. "Years from now, those who marched will be seen as heroic. But hopefully the product of all that is more and more people just getting on with their all-too-brief lives and rockin' some serious music."
