I came home to find a queer piece of mail the other day. It was third-class bulk mail, addressed to “resident.” The postmark was from here in Burlington, the return address was from Cincinnati, Ohio, but there was photo of a palm tree and the phrase “Aloha, Vermont friends,” on the outside.

It was an open letter from Hawaii’s citizens to Vermont’s citizens – via Cincinnati – and it wasn’t a queer letter after all. It was anti-queer. The letter was from Mike Gabbard, chairman of the Alliance for Traditional Marriage Hawaii. You may remember the great hue and cry of a few years ago when a court in Hawaii legalized same-sex marriages. The Congress passed a law defining marriage as a heterosexuals-only institution, the state of Hawaii added a traditional marriage amendment to its constitution. The amendment was approved by Hawaii’s voters by a 69 percent majority. Interesting statistic, when you think about it.

Right now there is a case before the Vermont Supreme Court whereby three same-sex couples are asking to get married. The court is expected to rule soon, possibly as soon as the legislature adjourns.

In his letter, Mike Gabbard warns that if Vermont legalizes gay marriage, thousands of gays and lesbians will pour into the state. What consequences, he asks, might that have for the tourist industry? Maybe, he says, for every gay tourist that comes, ten straight tourists will stay away. Mike, sweetie, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but every summer several thousand tourists from Quebec come down here in their boats and sail up and down Lake Champlain – naked. The skiing will be just as good, the leaves will be just as pretty and the maple syrup just as sweet on the pancakes – regardless of whom you choose to share your breakfast in bed with.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why people like Mike Gabbard and the 10 politicians who signed on to his letter feel so threatened by the concept of queer marriage. Do they think it will cause otherwise happily married heterosexuals to reconsider their orientation? I keep thinking of the old commercial – “Oh, I could have had a V-8!” Then I gave Mike’s letter a closer look and realized he is the chairman of Alliance for Traditional Marriage Hawaii. I’ve never been to Hawaii, so I don’t know what Traditional Marriage Hawaii means, although I suspect it has something to do with Don Ho singing “Tiny Bubbles” at the reception.

I don’t know what traditional marriage means in Hawaii, Vermont or anywhere else. I only know what it means to me. It means you and your beloved announce to the community your affection for each other and your intention to take care of each other for the rest of your lives. As your friend, I have an interest in that. As your fellow citizen, someone who may not know you personally, I also have an interest in that, because I want you to have the chance to take out loans, to buy houses, to share medical and retirement benefits. When your spouse has a heart attack, I don’t want to have to force you to carry a legal dossier to the emergency room to prove you have power of attorney to make decisions and when one of you dies, it is in my interest that there is an orderly transfer of property.

There are joyful and celebratory reasons to support queer marriage, there are dull and bureaucratic reasons. If the state of heterosexual marriage in America is sound, allowing gay marriage will not hurt it. If hetero marriage is in trouble, banning gay marriage will not save it.