Bite Me

Last week, my friend A was a dancing zombie in the New York City Halloween parade. Every year a large group of people, all dressed in their zombie finest, re-create the famous monster dance from Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" video. (You can find the dance recreation on YouTube if you’d like to see it.) My friend A loved every minute of performing during the parade and said to me "If you’re free for next year’s parade, you should sign up to do it. It was great!" Hmmmmm. Let’s see: me surrounded by 100 people all dressed up as zombies. I‘ll (shudder) pass.

For almost 30 years, I have had a totally irrational, unexplainable, keep the lights on, hide-under-the-covers fear of zombies. Really, I do.

It started on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1979 when a group of my friends and I went to see the movie "Dawn of the Dead". The audience in the theater was hooting and cheering, clearly loving every moment of the undead chowing down on the living. But while everyone around me called out for some rotting creature to take yet another bite of warm flesh flavored goodness, my seventeen year old self cowered in my seat, praying for the end credits to roll so I could escape outside to the safety of a blissful zombie-free world.

In the 29 years since that summer, my fear of zombies has stayed intact. I cringe at television commercials advertising any soon to be released zombie films and I have multiple issues with overly-realistic looking zombie costumes at Halloween. At times, I feel somewhat like Oz’s Cowardly Lion, repeating over and over again "I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks." Substitute the word "zombies" and that would be me standing there, tail in hand.

Don't ask me why it's zombies that have this effect. I have no idea. I have watched many horror films and not been scared at all. Jason can slash his way through as many horny teenagers he likes each Halloween and that dead girl from "The Ring" can crawl across as many floors as she pleases and I won't bat an eyelash. But bring out one slow-moving, ashen faced zombie with a serious flesh craving and I'm more terrified than a thirtysomething pre-liposuctioned Hollywood starlet facing the paparazzi during bikini season. It may be irrational but zombies, in plain language, scare the crap out of me.

Which brings me to this past Tuesday, Election Day.

While so much of the country was celebrating the victory of now President-Elect Obama, (yours truly included) the news coming out of California was not so jubilant. By a majority vote, gay marriage in that state (and 2 others) has now been banned. It seems unbelievable that in the same year Americans elect our first African-American President, in 3 states they also managed to cast enough votes to deny other Americans the right to marry. America may have finally reached a point where race doesn't matter to the majority of us anymore, but apparently a whole lotta people are still terrified of what some of us do with our genitals.

Exactly what is it about 2 people of the same sex taking a vow to love and cherish that scares so many? Do the supporters of Proposition 8 view a gay couple the same way the characters in that Dawn of the Dead movie viewed the slowly advancing members of the undead? Are we so horrifying for them to behold that just the sight of us in twos make them want to flee faster than Bristol Palin's boyfriend digging his escape tunnel? Is gay marriage the new zombie?

I wish I had some answers here, but there aren't any reasonable explanations when you're talking about irrational fears. The misguided supporters of Proposition 8 seem to believe they are somehow "protecting" marriage, much like people used to believe that they were "protecting" their neighborhoods by trying to keep people of color out. But luckily, times and attitudes change. Sometimes, change doesn't happen as quickly as we would like, but it does happen. The Prop 8 supporters can lock their doors and hide inside, but it's not going to stop progress from banging on that door until it gets to come in.

In January, an African-American will be sworn in as President of the United States. And someday, same sex marriage will be legal everywhere. It's slowly coming our way, one faltering footstep after another. And there's absolutely no reason to be afraid.