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As the USA confronts the Constitutional ramifications of gay marriage, many observers believe that nuptials between two partners of the same sex will-- at least in some jurisdictions-- become a legally recognized option by the end of 2004. But for some activists, an option isn't enough.

Pro-marriage focus groups in Boston, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, are collaborating on a sweeping new initiative that would require all gay men and lesbians over 21 to wed by December 31, 2005. Proponents admit that it will be a challenge to make gay weddings legally obligatory even before they are generally recognized as legal in the US. "There's going to be a long, hard road," says Donna MacTickie, coordinator of the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Obligatory Marriage Initiative (OMI). "But in the end, gay couples everywhere will thank us, and will, in our honor, throw fundraising dinners attended by both Tipper Gore and Barbra Streisand."

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MacTickie and her HRC colleagues are crafting a bill that will-- with minor site-specific alterations-- be shopped around to legislatures of all 50 states. It will also be introduced at town meetings and in city council chambers from Caribou, Maine, to Hilo, Hawaii. "Our goal, of course, is Congressional approval of a Mandatory Marriage Act," says MacTickie, "but for now we welcome any local victories that come our way."

In March, a bipartisan roster of co-sponsors led by Congressperson Trixie Wigpicker (D.-Illinois) will introduce federal mandatory marriage legislation which would require all gay men and lesbians to find partners and exchange marriage vows no later than two years past their 21st birthdays. If some version of the HRC's OMI becomes the law of the land before the end of 2004, all gay people already over 21 would have to be married before New Year's Day 2006.

"It's imperative," says HRC Monogamy Coordinator Georgina Flue, "that all gay people-- men especially-- get out there and tie that knot. Once they're married, I can guarantee they'll be having much less sex."

"How can we force everyone to be monogamous if we can't first sort them into couples?" asks MacTickie.

Queer bedfellows?

Curiously, efforts by conservatives to stop gay marriage cold and lesbian-and-gay efforts to make it mandatory seem like trains speeding down the same track in the same direction.

"We need to stop having sex and start having lots of children," MacTickie insists. "This is 2004. The core of today's American culture is the family. Moldy old concepts like sexual freedom belong in the trash." MacTickie and her partner, gynecologist Wilma Hoole, recently became the mothers of quintuplets with the aid of fertility drugs and a syringe.

The OMI would impose a sliding scale of fines and prison sentences for failure to marry, and would push-- proponents and critics agree-- non- mainstream elements in the gay community underground. MacTickie and Flue grant that the brave new OMI world would force many to restructure unconventional but stable living situations. In Bag Balm, Wisconsin, for example, Tim Phiffin, Jack Buglick, and Doug Rugbaum are seeking ways to preserve their eight-year menage ą trois. In Pfluckey, Oklahoma, a seven-woman household is searching for an eighth roommate so that its members, who have been living in a polyamorous arrangement since 1992, can break down-- at least officially-- into couples.

"And what about people who'd rather be single?" asks Harlan O'Marvish of the Right Not to Marry Coalition (RNMC). "The thought of sharing my house with someone I can't throw out after breakfast just freezes my blood."

"Marriage smells," says retired postal clerk Rick Blunk, 78, who in the 1950s helped found the Poughkeepsie chapter of the Mattachine Society. "It's oppressive. It's a capitalist con job. Who the fuck needs it? My partner of 55 years and I have sure as hell not been longing for some bullshit slip of paper that officially demotes our union to the level of dingbat hetero breeder agreements."

"Marriage should be universally banned, not universally enforced," adds Blunk's partner, retired pipe-fitter Walt Pistou, 82.

"Mr. Blunk and Mr. Pistou clearly suffer from senile dementia," says Georgina Flue, "and are more to be pitied than censured. Just wait-- we'll get them married, then they'll thank us."

Demand blooms

Already grateful for gay-marriage mania are countless businesses. Wherever same-sex marriage or commitment ceremonies are performed, retail operations reap the benefits-- especially dealers in archetypal wedding gifts like toasters, cappuccino makers, and fondue pots. But other portions of the private sector find the rush to matrimony financially dispiriting.

"You gotta move with the times," sighs Marvin Fleisch, who owns and manages Suds 'n' Studs, a formerly popular bathhouse near the University of California's Berkeley campus. Fleisch has temporarily shuttered his 25-year-old pleasure palace for conversion into a facility strictly for couples. When Suds reopens, same-sex couples who produce marriage certificates will be led to private cubicles and locked inside until they ask to be released. During their time on the premises, no couple will be permitted to have contact with any other couple, or to lay eyes on any unclothed person other than each other.

Perceiving OMI as the wave of the future, the owners of Fuck World, the famed gay sex emporium in San Francisco's Castro district, are converting their five-story building into an auto parts warehouse. Similar establishments are courting a straight clientele. Many proprietors of sex clubs and baths have been folding their tents and fleeing to Prague.

Of Golden Gates & rings I sing

Despite scattered gay-marriage breakthroughs across the US-- most notably a landmark ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts-- the national epicenter of same-sex marriage remains San Francisco. Following Mayor Gavin Newsom's February directive permitting gay civil ceremonies, the city has faced a stampede of marriage-hungry same-sex couples. By March 1, 2004, the city of San Francisco had sanctioned 43,654 same-sex marriages. When the City Clerk's office instituted a by-appointment- only policy, the waiting list for appointments hit the 300,000 mark in only six hours.

Guide staffers recently paid a visit to San Francisco City Hall. Previous trips to had acquainted us with the Civic Center neighborhood, a windswept open area where junkies live in cardboard boxes, and homeless lunatics trundle along behind pushcarts piled high with trash- pickings crammed into old Gucci shopping bags. But on that drizzly day in late February, the plaza was transformed.

A happy queue of gay men and lesbians carrying colorful rainbow umbrellas moved slowly down Polk Street humming Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." The line wrapped around a corner, extended down Market Street, and backed up along the Embarcadero. Slowly but inexorably, each pair stepped into the French Revival portico of City Hall, passed through the Dan White Memorial Metal Detectors, climbed a flight of stairs, and entered the office of City Clerk Hazel Gutchmeister. There, at three-minute intervals, same-sex couples repeated gender-neutral marriage vows, signed a registry, paid $157, and were pelted with rice and confetti by city employees. For couples willing to pay an additional $23, City Planning Commissioner Mel Keck, a countertenor, sang "O Promise Me" a cappella.

Anton Woczkowczkiewicz, who, under the name Tony Kielbasa, appeared in 236 adult videos between June 2002 and February 2003, emerged from City Hall with his partner, graphic artist Ellery Goob. "Mine marriage have already save me from mineself!" the former Polish porn star insisted. "The moment our wedding have finish, mine kutas it scrinch the more shorter."

Woczkowczkiewicz and Goob have just moved into a split-level beach house near Malibu where they intend to raise Lhasa apsos and eventually children. Woczkowczkiewicz deplores recent statements by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow European whose man-woman vision of marriage conforms to the National Socialist ideals of his Austrian youth. The newlyweds share a conviction that all gay men should be married. "It's for their own good," says Goob, "and the good of their penises."

Lesbians are finding marriage equally beneficial, however. Repressed-memory therapists Imelda Hazelchild and Anita Womynfyre-- already joined in a Wiccan commitment ceremony last September in Vermont-- were among those who shared in the rain-swept euphoria outside San Francisco City Hall. Both women voiced their approval of OMI. "It's all about equality," said Hazelchild, stepping over a sodden, elderly bag lady clutching a crutch.

A block away, Todd Phlegmar and Scott Bruckus stood holding hands. "It's all because of our role model, Britney Spears," said Todd. "If Britney could stay married for 55 hours, we know we can do it for at least four days." Both men agreed that OMI is a good idea, but expressed the hope that the monogamous relationships it fosters might be serial in character.

Like flies to honeymoon

While OMI advocates cite the tax and property advantages of same-sex marriage, the RNMC's Harlan O'Marvish observes that marriage also comes freighted with traditional drawbacks: physical battering, emotional maltreatment, constant petty bickering, child abuse, murder, child custody disputes, pet custody disputes, furniture custody disputes, division-of-property disputes, depression, substance abuse, couch-potato syndrome, obesity, alcoholism, barbiturate addiction, lethargy, avarice, duplicity, ulcers, malnutrition, psychosis, and permanent brain damage.

"People don't seem to realize how much of that they can have without going through the hassles of marriage," says Rick Blunk.

"Those nay-sayers are just jealous and they ought to be ashamed," says Jason Casey-Payne, a well-known Palo Alto plastic surgeon. "If icks arise in marriage, they are almost always due to sex." Jason and his new husband, Mason Casey-Payne, Executive Vice President of Oilslick Enterprises, a cosmetics firm, have taken the radical step of having their genitalia surgically removed.

"We just followed our bliss," says Jason, who performed the operation himself. "The step we took not only makes questions of fidelity academic, it confines our relationship to wholesome cuddles."

"We've transcended sex," explains Mason, "and shifted our focus to raising our wonderful rainbow family. The OMI will insure that the whole gay community shares our good fortune."

The Guide recently visited Jason and Mason Casey-Payne at their 18-room cottage high in the Berkeley hills. While Jason, sporting an apron with the word DAD emblazoned on the bib, flipped turkey burgers over a mesquite grill by the pool, Mason played tag with three of the seven special-needs children the couple had adopted one week earlier during a whirlwind tour of several Third World countries. The remaining four youngsters, who are kinetically challenged, sat nearby eating Lego bricks and drooling.

"Next week Mace and I are going snorkeling off Mauritius," said Jason, turning to his eight-year- old son Ho Binh. "Can you spell Mauritius? It's an island in the Indian Ocean. The home of the dodo."

"Yaagh!" Ho Binh responded, poking Jason playfully in the eye with a stick.

Asked if he and his spouse intended to share their vacation with all seven of their children, Jason cringed, then laughed. "Oh, please," he said. "We will have had these kids for two whole weeks by then. Why do you suppose God created nannies?"

Painful shards of shattered nuptials

Not every new gay marriage is filled with connubial joy. One Sausalito couple, Brad Jones and Rick Smith (not their real names), have already become disillusioned.

"I want a divorce," sobs Brad, who says he has been crying inconsolably for more than a week. "All we ever do is watch Ashton Kutcher movies and eat. In the 17 days we've been married, we've each gained 35 pounds."

"We've already run out of Ashton Kutcher movies, but we can't stop snacking," Rick admits.

"The moment we said 'I do,' Rick turned into this colossal bitch," fumes Brad. "The one time we made it out of the house, he dragged me to the mall and made me watch The Butterfly Effect. I ought to report him for spousal abuse. Fuck marriage. As God is my witness, I'll never get married again."

If and when same-sex married couples divorce, the HRC's present OMI proposal would allow gay men and lesbians a six-month respite before they must announce another engagement. "We aren't about to encourage divorce," says Georgina Flue. "The goal must be monogamous partnerships for life. As for adulterers, I say lock 'em up and throw away the key!"

The political right takes note of such statements. President George W. Bush's election- year condemnations of same-sex marriage notwithstanding, many Republicans-- including some key members of the Bush Administration-- are beginning to think same-sex marriage has redeeming facets. Some Congressional conservatives have hinted off-the-record that once the Presidential election is over, they may vote in favor of a mandatory marriage bill.

"In these troubled times," says Crispin Briggs IV, who heads the Log Cabin Club of Icedrip, North Dakota, "one easy way to keep tabs on every individual would be to break all households down into legally married units." Briggs feels that widespread marriage will expedite the tracking and surveillance tasks required by the USA Patriot Act of 2001. Inside sources at the Department of Homeland Security say that while Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge cannot, as a Republican, condone same-sex marriage publicly, he privately admits he would welcome the success of the OMI.

Some religious conservatives profess support for same-sex marriage as well. In Pigwipe, Arkansas, Town Clerk Doralene Smeckey, a born- again Christian, has been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples for more than a month-- in defiance of an Arkansas Superior Court court order. "Until they arrest me," Smeckey insists, "I'll stick to my guns. Them homos may broil in hell from the moment they cash in their chips, but as long as they're here, I will not have them living in sin."

While the Arkansas Attorney General's Office seeks to intimidate Smeckey, and dueling lawsuits contest the constitutionality of San Francisco's marriage policy, Georgina Flue and Donna MacTickie, sometimes in the company of HRC Executive Director Cheryl Jaques, go on touring the nation urging public officials to accept the inevitability of same-sex marriage and support the campaign to make it mandatory.

"Doralene Smeckey is living proof," says Flue, "that when it comes to promoting marriage, even people who are full of shit have got the right idea."