Marriage: By Any Other Name?
I hope to get married someday. Not just ceremonially committed to another person, but given the rights and legal protections that come with having a long-term relationship officially recognized by my country's government. If my union can't be given the title of marriage, I will begrudgingly accept a civil union that affords me all the same rights and protections.
However, I recently got in a debate with a friend who wants nothing to do with either of those titles. Feeling that marriage is a fucked-up institution that many straight people haven't necessarily gotten right, he believes that gays should create their own matrimonial title which properly conveys our differences from the hets.
I disagreed with him. It got a little heated.
I think marriage should be called marriage. If I wanted to be joined eternally in "Sacred Strands of Togetherness" or a "Forever Banquet of Mutual Love," I would just run away to a commune or some other space where the rest of society's governance wouldn't apply to me.
I definitely see my friend's points about the questionable logic of fighting to subscribe to an already flawed institution, but that institution is unfortunately all we have. What matters most to me is someday being able to visit my husband in the hospital or adopt a child with the smallest amount of red tape. The fastest and most efficient means to this end is work within our existing system. Half the reason that so many rights are denied to American homos is that we're seen by the majority as different. Creating our own, separate designation for marriage isn't going to open very many people's eyes to the fact that we're just regular people with the same life goals as anybody else.
I understand that you "can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools," but right now we're barely in the master's backyard. I personally think we should attend to the rudiments before we start making improvements. Walk before running. Basic civil rights before the complete overhaul of convention.
What do all you out there in TNG-ville think about this? Have you heard similar arguments from anyone you know? Do you think we're lowering ourselves as a people by trying to force entry into the straight world?
4 comments:
like your friend, i am no fan of gay marriage but i think for different reasons. i think gay people are different and should stay that way if they want to. i see marriage as a religous thing that was made for men and women. governments have chosen to recognize some marriages and to extend certain rights to married people as a result. i just think that's unfortunate. it just makes me angry when people (lead by the HRC) tell me that the way to be accepted, to not be fired from my job, to not be punched in the face in the street is to take my normal gay relationship and make it look and sound like my parents' relationship. if dc were to give me financial and other benefits for "marrying" the bf, fuck yeah i'd take it because i'm not one to turn down free stuff. but i think i'm just as much of a real, respectable adult as my married sister. i'm happy to wait for the rest of our society to realize that.
In my opinion, government-recognized marriages should officially be called the "civil unions" that they really are, and any two consenting adults should be able to enter into one. Marriage is a purely religious institution, and it should stay that way. My parents had to get married twice--once in church and once at the courthouse--so I don't see religious and civil marriages as being the same thing.
TNG-ville? I like that phrase, zack, and I'm pleased to know that marriages are legal there.
I'm not sure marriage is right for me, and if it was It wouldn't be a traditional arrangement. However, there are a few sentiments that don't make any sense to me:
The feeling that the gay marriage movement is trying to make gays fit into a straight mold. Who really gives a flip what you do within the context of your marriage? Who gives a flip about HRC's marketing campaign? I laught at it too, but the point is that you need to fight for equality. You may be happy in your own unconventional bubble, but you won't achieve equality by marginalizing yourself. Just the fact that you pay your taxes and are excluded from all these government benefits isn't enough to get people pissed off about this?
The idea that people will magically start to accept you as equal without actually fighting for that perception by bringing the fight to common ground. A lot of people living their daily lives openly, courageously, and with integrity do change perceptions, but that behavior goes hand in hand with direct social action. Again, you've got to fight for equality.
I'm also amazed that so many people see marriage as a strictly religious institution. In this country religion didn't enter the picture until it was needed for the purposes of record keeping and making sure that men weren't marrying more than one woman (that's where the tradition of calling for objections came about). We don't need religious institutions for those functions anymore. Religious function in marriage is ceremonial. The economic benefits that we are fighting for come from government. As long as the government plays a part in this thing, we should have access to the same name and the same benefits. I know there are a lot of bottoms in this town, but I sure as hell don't want to willingly bend over for "Civil Unions", so I can be shut up while still being kept in my place.
I agree with Hans. Let's divorce marriage from government. Let marriage remain a religious institution, and provide civil unions for anyone (straight or not) who wants government-granted privileges of coupledom. The straights have already ruined marriage, so let's just take it away and establish a new unbiased institution that provides all the same rights.
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