Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Would It Be Ruined, Or Would It Be Saved?


A new article in Time magazine, see it here, seeks to use the notion that gay people deserve marriage as an excuse to end marriage. Well, gosh, Time magazine, thanks! Thanks for giving the haters another argument in how gay marriage would destroy traditional marriage.

The writer of the article, one Michael A. Lindenberger, correctly reminds us that no one, that's right no one, is married until the government says you're married. You can get yourself all gussied up in your finery, tuxedos and veils, and limo on down to the local church, and stand before god and pastors and ministers and rabbis and friends and family and say I do all over the place, but you aren't married until the government says you're married.

So, Lindenberger suggests we abandon the traditional church wedding, in favor of civil unions for any couple, straight or gay. Then, if you want to stand before god and pastors and yada yada yada then go on and do that; it'll be an extra treat but it has no legal meaning. It's a personal thing.

Except that now those anti-gay-marriage folks will use this argument as another way to fight us. They'll have billboards and placards and commercials about how marriage was all well and good until the gays wanted it, and then it all changed; the gays took marriage away from all of us and gave us civil unions instead.

I feel differently. I don't think anyone who is pro-gay marriage wants to change marriage; they just want marriage. They want what everyone else has a right to have, the proclamation of marriage, the legality of marriage, the sanctity of marriage, the recognition of marriage.

And as for same-sex marital recognition, the writer and some lawyers whom he interviewed, believe that if you "[t]ake the state out of the marriage business...then both kinds of couples — straight and gay — would be treated the same."

But would we, straight and gay, really be treated the same? Or would we, the gay community and those who support equal rights for all, be treated differently? Would we forever be acknowledged as the ones who ruined marriage for everybody else? Wouldn't we still be thought of as different because, even though we have our civil unions, like all couples, we would still be denied the right to marry in a church if that's what we wanted?

As Lindenberger points out in his piece, however, giving up the word "marriage" might be an impossible task. Some straight folks may balk at the idea that they can't get "married," and believe they have lost something very important to them. But I say to the straight community, and those that oppose gay marriage, think about how we, the gay community, feel.

We don't have a clue as to what's it's like to lose the right to marry, because we've never had it.

2 comments:

  1. When about 50% of legal marriages end up in divorce, how can anyone claim gays would ruin it when we've never had it and half the straights apparently can't handle it?

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  2. I will never, EVER pretend to be in to the politcs or fighting of gay marraige or anything else having to do with gays, because you know what? I DON'T care WHO people love, who they want to marry, who they want to spend their life with. As long as people are happy, WHY do other people dare to say it's wrong? And again, people use religion as a basis to hate. But who, ultimately is happier in life (for the most part)? Gay marriages, from what I have seen and read. I'm just thrilled and happy when there are gay men and women who find their soul mate, either get married or just live together (because the law tries to dictate who they should be happy with so they aren't allowed to be married) because I can't imagine the pain they must have gone through to get to a point in their life where they CAN be happy! And also, from what I have seen, gay marriages ARE happier than most ... what is the word, "non-gay" marriages? Far happier than any of my three have been, that's for sure! LOL

    I'm getting mad now. So I'll stop. I hope I made since.

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