Why Marriage Matters

TNG is taking a much needed break from Dec 19-Jan 4. TNG will return with new content on Jan 5. Until then, please enjoy this post from the past year. Original publish date: 3/7/08.

Marc Fisher, columnist with the Washington Post, ran a column yesterday on the precarious position of marriage rights in Maryland. It appears that the fate of the state's same-sex marriage bill currently lies in the hand of one man. A man who is part-time Democratic state senator, and part-time Christian pastor. A man committed to civil rights, but also committed to upholding Christian marriage. The twist, it seems, is that he'll support domestic partnerships or civil unions, but not if they are named as such. So, Maryland goes off trying to find a new name for the same old rights that we continue to be denied.

Call it marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, '"'Mutual beneficiaries,' 'reciprocal beneficiaries,' 'household partners,' 'household registrants.'" Call it whatever you want. Regardless, it's something we want, we deserve, we need, in order to best contribute to our society at large.

A few years ago, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with my aunt/god-mother at the reception after my nephew's baptism. I was back east from grad school at UC Berkeley at the time, and miserable. She and I were talking about my depression, her depression, and our inability to find optimism in our lives. I interjected that the my struggles would be so much easier if I had a boyfriend, but then chastised myself for looking for such an easy out. My aunt, a very peaceful and spiritual Quaker, objected to my self-criticism, telling me, "Michael, people are made to go through this life in twos."

I felt a bit better about my situation, at least the not-wanting-to-be-single part. (Her words didn't make my grad school stress or my homesickness any better.) But her comment actually encouraged me to give in to the random fears that gripped me while trying to focus on my studies. Fears that I was 30 years old and didn't have any idea of when my next potential romantic encounter might come from. Fears that I'd finish grad school at the age of 33, even less desirable than I was when I started, even more likely to be single for the rest of my life. And these fears did grip. They took hold of my chest, squeezing my heart, releasing adrenaline into my blood stream, making my thighs feel like lead blocks, forcing me to put down my text book and go to the computer, to look for a potential mate, date or sexual partner. On craigslist. Or gay. com. Or wherever.

These sites are addictive because they give you something for free that you'd gladly pay for: Hope. And that was something I was lacking. My overwhelming need for an intimate connection to another human being would always trump my altruistic goals for higher education. Not that I acted on that need, but I sure as hell tried to and ended up wasting a lot of time in the process.

Now imagine how this situation would have been different if I'd had a boyfriend at the time. All of the time and energy I wasted that first year of grad school (before moving from sleepy Berkeley into San Francisco, where some of that hopelessness was squelched by the hot guys my age seemingly everywhere around me)... All of that time and energy could have been focused on my studies, the whole and entire reason I uprooted myself from my comfortable home in DC to move 3000 miles away to another city in another timezone, where I knew a small handful of people, all of whom seemed to busy to spend any quality time with me. If I'd only had a boyfriend then.

I'll get to the point. We humans have a lot of potential for doing great things in this world. Unfortunately, many of us can't focus completely on contributing to our society in general if we aren't getting our own personal needs met. From the natural biological need for companionship and for procreation to the simple economies of scale that kick in when two people are working towards a common goal, people function better when they work as part of a team.

And that's why marriage is so important. Couples of any gender-pairing need all the support they can get. We need support from our friends and families. (Thanks, PFLAG.) We need support from our employers and colleagues. (Domestic partner benefits and workplace non-discrimination laws, please.) We need support from our medical, social and faith organizations. (Compassionate health care?) And we need the support of our state and federal government. (Inheritance benefits, tax benefits, hospital visitation, etc.)

It's true that the straights already have all of the support I mention above, and they aren't doing such a good job of staying together. However, there's not legitimate reason (lots of illegitimate ones) to not extend these benefits to same-sex couples. Any two individuals who choose to form a team in order to excel in this life should get all the support available to them from every level of our society, from the house next door to the House of Representatives.

There is an economic case to be made for supporting couples: people are more productive and can focus more on being awesome at what they do when they can stop worrying about when their next lay is coming from. I know there's a lot more to it, but this what it all boils down to for me.