A lot of people, some of them celebrities, have put their own marriages on hold until there is marriage equality in this country. While these couples are considered honorable and activist, I can't help but disagree completely.
The fight for marriage equality is being fought so that everyone in this country has the legal right to marry the person they love, regardless of either partner's sex. People want to get married. People want the symbol of marriage, they want the legal protections of marriage, they want the chance to celebrate their relationships with their friends and families.
When you declare that you will not do the same until they can, you dangle marriage rights in their faces. You say, "I can have what you want, and am going to choose not to have it." You say, I am going to stay in this limbo state of lifetime commitment without the legal status. You are doing by choice what they have had done to them by force.
I understand that the idea is solidarity. But, for me, this aligns exactly with the idea that the person who can read and does not has nothing more than the person who cannot read at all.
It seems to me that the best choice here is for heterosexual couples who love each other to get married, and then fight for the rights of their friends and neighbors. Heterosexism does not end with the putting on hold of heterosexual marriage. But the value and importance of marriage does. Getting married isn't on my upcoming agenda or anything, but if it was, I would not be waiting. I would be so grateful for the right to marry the person I love, and want to legally recognize it, and then pick back up the fight.
What do you think?
The fight for marriage equality is being fought so that everyone in this country has the legal right to marry the person they love, regardless of either partner's sex. People want to get married. People want the symbol of marriage, they want the legal protections of marriage, they want the chance to celebrate their relationships with their friends and families.
When you declare that you will not do the same until they can, you dangle marriage rights in their faces. You say, "I can have what you want, and am going to choose not to have it." You say, I am going to stay in this limbo state of lifetime commitment without the legal status. You are doing by choice what they have had done to them by force.
I understand that the idea is solidarity. But, for me, this aligns exactly with the idea that the person who can read and does not has nothing more than the person who cannot read at all.
It seems to me that the best choice here is for heterosexual couples who love each other to get married, and then fight for the rights of their friends and neighbors. Heterosexism does not end with the putting on hold of heterosexual marriage. But the value and importance of marriage does. Getting married isn't on my upcoming agenda or anything, but if it was, I would not be waiting. I would be so grateful for the right to marry the person I love, and want to legally recognize it, and then pick back up the fight.
What do you think?