Same-Sex Marriage: 'The pressure to pick a side has really amped up'

Saturday at Atlantic Station marks The Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus’ fourth annual Big Wig Party fundraiser, “Once Upon a Wig.”

The fairytale-themed party will bring together men and women of all ages as everyone is invited to dress as your favorite fairytale character for the opportunity to win the best-wig contest.

The event runs from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. and see here for more information on what should be a fabulous evening.

Atlanta-based playwrite, author and actor Topher Payne knows a thing or two about wigs. He sported more than a few recently playing the title role in Process Theatre's “Auntie Mame,” and no doubt will don more while playing the title role in the world premiere of “Bat-Hamlet” with the Essential Theatre in July. His own play, “Evelyn In Purgatory," will have its world premiere with Essential Theatre that month, too. Both plays will be produced at Actors Express in the King Plow Center in West Midtown.    

Many Midtowners are no doubt familiar with Payne, as the 12-year Atlanta resident served as a Grand Marshal for the 2011 Atlanta Pride Parade, and has been honored with numerous distinctions by the community. Last week, he penned a column for The Georgia Voice, which began with a talk show producer seeking a married gay couple living in a state where a same-sex marriage isn’t legally recognized.

Georgia is such a state. It was in October 2009 when Payne and his now husband, Tommy, went to Cape Cod, Mass., to exchange vows and have their marriage legally recognized.

In the column, Payne acknowledges that he hadn’t been a very active participant, at least vocally, in the fight for marriage equality. But he went on to say that in the wake of President Barack Obama’s endorsement this month of same-sex marriage that his views were beginning to change.

Wrote Payne:

“The pressure to pick a side has really amped up. The NAACP is on our side. So is Jay Z. It’s the hot question in every celebrity interview. I have to be brave enough to ask that question of the people around me. I don’t really ask. I just assume the support of some people, and with others, I avoid the topic because I’m afraid of the answer.

"But I’m married. And if someone in my life does not respect the authenticity of my marriage, if they wouldn’t defend it on my behalf, then they’re working against us. They’re a bigot. Maybe they’re a bigot because of their religion, or maybe it’s because… okay, let’s be (expletive) real here. It is ONLY because of their religion. Just because my God is awesome and theirs is apparently kind of a (expletive) is no reason to infringe on my rights.”

A few days after Obama declared his support of same-sex marriage, a new Gallup Poll indicated that 54 percent of Americans concluded that gay and lesbian relations was morally responsible. Fifty percent said same-sex marriage should be valid, up 10 percent from three years ago.

But the fact remains that 30-plus states have passed amendments or initiatives that defines marriage as a union between one single man and a one single woman. And Georgia is one of 13 states that has voted in recent years to add the definition to its constitution.

Same-sex marriage opponents will stand by state laws and feel their long-standing views are being protected. But many feel it’s only a matter of time before a federal judge steps in and makes such state acts null and void. And then what? Only time will tell of course, but clearly, this issue isn’t going away anytime soon.