Marriage Equality for All

By Ian Coppock

Today, the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments about the constitutionality of denying marriage and other rights to gays and lesbians in the United States. Regardless of your feelings on homosexuality,  the ability to marry the person you love is a fundamental right, not a heterosexual privilege. On the grounds of constitutionality, fairness, compassion and justice, I urge everyone who reads this message to support the fight for equality. I don't like to get political on my blog, so it's a good thing that this is a human issue, not a political one.

In honor of today's historic push for gay rights, I'm posting an article I wrote last summer about how the video game industry is endorsing universal rights by including gay and lesbian characters in their games. I focused on Mass Effect 3 for this article. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think!

It makes me feel good when progressive trends emerge in our nation’s media. It makes me feel even better when those same trends appear in my favorite media: video games. Although it took years, the video game industry has begun to acknowledge the existence of gay and lesbian people. Bioware, a Canadian developer whose titles include the Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect series, took up this cause in earnest with Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3, a science fiction shooter with role-playing elements, was released on March 15^th for the PC and consoles such as the Playstation 3. In the game, players assume the role of Commander Shepard, a charismatic human soldier who must save the galaxy from an ancient race of machines called the Reapers, who harvest all sentient life every 50,000 years. Players can make their Shepard male or female, and customize countless other features. In Mass Effect 3, Bioware introduced two new characters, Samantha Traynor and Steve Cortez, who are crewmembers aboard Shepard’s ship.

What’s remarkable about these characters is that they mark the first time openly homosexual people have appeared in a mainstream game. Traynor freely discusses her sexual orientation upon meeting Commander Shepard for the first time, and Cortez is grieving the loss of his husband in a recent battle. These characters are each powerful and interesting people in their own right, and adhere to no stereotypes about the gay community. In the futuristic community of Mass Effect, homosexuality is seen as a normal and nonchalant fact of human society, which is exactly how it should be viewed in real life. Players even have the option of romancing Traynor or Cortez. It’s just a game, of course, but even being able to do that is a huge acknowledgement from Bioware that homosexuality is normal, and should be treated with respect.

This heartwarming endorsement from Bioware and Bioware’s parent company, Electronic Arts, is actually a significant victory for the gay community. When a cause gains media visibility, it is an indicator that the people in our society want that cause to be acknowledged. In other words, support for gay equality is growing, and quickly. Social conservatives can point to political agendas and secret gay conspiracies all they want, but the fact remains: Mass Effect 3 included gay characters because enough of the series’ fans asked for them

Media visibility can be used to attain almost anything. President John Kennedy called for an end to racial segregation after seeing images and reading letters from the civil rights movement. Indeed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed one year later after growing support from all corners of society, including the media

We’re seeing the exact same thing happen all around us, right now. President Obama has called for gay equality after seeing the gay community fight for it, and who knows? Perhaps gay marriage and equality will be attained soon. The old Calvin and Hobbes adage of “yell loudly enough and someone will notice” works every time.

The video game industry has chosen to add to the metaphorical “yell”, and I applaud Bioware’s progressivism. The gay community is anything but alone in their fight for equality; the most powerful forms of media have endorsed their right to happiness and a normal life, through not only news coverage, but storytelling. I, for one, am proud of the industry I hope to one day work for. Every quip of dialogue in Mass Effect 3 from Samantha Traynor or Steve Cortez is a message: “We’re here. We’re normal. And gay people can save the galaxy too.”