"erase my name, or write it as you will/ so i be written in the book of Love"
My apologies for the length of this post. I cannot bring myself to cut this -- it is too important to me.
This is in response to a friend of a friend, whose journal I do not feel comfortable commenting on. This person, a young Mormon lady, read of the protests in California and Utah at temples this week, and felt hurt, shocked, and angered by the violence and ferocity of the protests. (Although, I wish to note, the "violence" she spoke of was from hearsay -- the CNN article she (and I) linked to makes no mention of car-pounding or rock-throwing, and specifically states that no arrests were made at any protests.) She spoke of the equal rights to religion, free speech. She said:
"Marriage now a days seems to have certainly lost it's gleam with people getting married left and right for the wrong reasons, money, power, whatever. Then getting divorced like it's just a break up. How special is marriage now a days when the world says it's okay to have sex outside of marriage. Then so what? If you are already having sex now, what does it matter if you have that certificate declaring you are married? It seems pointless to me, but then again I'm not married, so I don't know what it all involves there besides joining of one into a "family". I have sisters, but I am a biologically an only child. My father is not a polygamist, I have one mother. But I have always had someone there for me to call my sisters. Couldn't it be the same? To me, if you're living together, you're already having sex, you might as well be married anyway right? Same sex or no, doesn't matter."
That's a long quote, but there are several issues throughout that I wish to address.
First, and most important to me, the idea that living together and fucking is equal to marriage. I'm sorry to use such a vulgarity, but that's what it boils down to. And yes, there are common law marriages -- for straights. And to be quite frank about it, not too long ago I felt much the same. But there is so much more in a marriage that straight people often take for granted.
Ray and I live together. We love each other, we consider each other family. We are engaged. We wear rings that the other has bought. But when she goes to work as a high school teacher next semester, next year, next job, I will be relegated to roommate status because she can be fired for a gay fiancee. If she gets in a terrible car wreck, it will be at the determination of her parents if I can visit her in the hospital. If she goes to grad school, she will not be able to apply for housing for herself and her finacee because I will not be recognized as such. Down the line, when we adopt, it is very likely that only one of us will be able to legally adopt -- if she is the legal adoption mother, and she is killed, OUR child will be taken from me and I will be completely powerless to stop it (which is not to say I would not bankrupt myself trying to stop it).
When we buy a car, we won't be able to take joint responsibility. If I am in a coma and go brain dead, Ray will not be able to follow my wishes and have me taken off life support. As my nieces grow up and see up together, my homophobic brother will be able to claim that Ray and I are merely roommates and we will have no legal marriage to refute him.
Are these wrong reasons for wanting marriage? By whose measure are they wrong?
Secondly, to address her first part of that quote. In her eyes, marriage has devalued in recent years. She asks why people would even want to fight for the right. I would counter with the claim that religion has moved so far off its initial teachings in recent years, why would anyone want to fight for the right to practice their religion of choice?
The point being, it's not my right to deny others rights simply because I don't see why they want them. If there is an inequality, it should be righted.
Thirdly, the idea of family. I am a firm and ardent believer that friends can become family, much as she believes. But my 'adopted' family of friends, the sisters and brothers I've found here, are not the same as my legal family. My blood family.
Here's an example: I came out to my friends-family, people I am still close to, when I was in high school. It took nearly six years for my to come out to my parents, and I still have not done so to my brothers, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my grandparents. My mother could not understand why: in her eyes, blood family will always have to be there for you, while friends might ridicule or scorn. In my eyes, blood family will always be there, either for you or against you, but friends and even friends-family can leave and lose touch and I can still go on.
I don't know if that made sense outside my own head, I'm sorry. I tried.
Fourth and finally, elsewhere in her post, she had this to say:
"[...]but when people act as such? So much destruction and war already going on with the world? Do we really need our own contention in the nation?"
I agree wholeheartedly, and equally agree that violence at protests is to be abhorred. But I also approach this statement from the other side: with so much destruction and war, so much hate and death, WHY do you deny ANYONE the right to openly declare their love and commitment? Keith Olbermann's closing segment tonight argued this so much more eloquently than I ever could, and I will not even attempt it. I will link to his clip when it inevitably appears online, and may even summon the courage to comment to this young lady's post with that clip. I am honestly in tears right now: tears of frustration, tears of anger, tears of hopelessness. I have lost any clear articulation, so I leave you with a quote from earlier in Olbermann's Countdown:
"Why would anyone want to oppose happiness in a lonely and unhappy world?" - Keith Olbermann
This is in response to a friend of a friend, whose journal I do not feel comfortable commenting on. This person, a young Mormon lady, read of the protests in California and Utah at temples this week, and felt hurt, shocked, and angered by the violence and ferocity of the protests. (Although, I wish to note, the "violence" she spoke of was from hearsay -- the CNN article she (and I) linked to makes no mention of car-pounding or rock-throwing, and specifically states that no arrests were made at any protests.) She spoke of the equal rights to religion, free speech. She said:
"Marriage now a days seems to have certainly lost it's gleam with people getting married left and right for the wrong reasons, money, power, whatever. Then getting divorced like it's just a break up. How special is marriage now a days when the world says it's okay to have sex outside of marriage. Then so what? If you are already having sex now, what does it matter if you have that certificate declaring you are married? It seems pointless to me, but then again I'm not married, so I don't know what it all involves there besides joining of one into a "family". I have sisters, but I am a biologically an only child. My father is not a polygamist, I have one mother. But I have always had someone there for me to call my sisters. Couldn't it be the same? To me, if you're living together, you're already having sex, you might as well be married anyway right? Same sex or no, doesn't matter."
That's a long quote, but there are several issues throughout that I wish to address.
First, and most important to me, the idea that living together and fucking is equal to marriage. I'm sorry to use such a vulgarity, but that's what it boils down to. And yes, there are common law marriages -- for straights. And to be quite frank about it, not too long ago I felt much the same. But there is so much more in a marriage that straight people often take for granted.
Ray and I live together. We love each other, we consider each other family. We are engaged. We wear rings that the other has bought. But when she goes to work as a high school teacher next semester, next year, next job, I will be relegated to roommate status because she can be fired for a gay fiancee. If she gets in a terrible car wreck, it will be at the determination of her parents if I can visit her in the hospital. If she goes to grad school, she will not be able to apply for housing for herself and her finacee because I will not be recognized as such. Down the line, when we adopt, it is very likely that only one of us will be able to legally adopt -- if she is the legal adoption mother, and she is killed, OUR child will be taken from me and I will be completely powerless to stop it (which is not to say I would not bankrupt myself trying to stop it).
When we buy a car, we won't be able to take joint responsibility. If I am in a coma and go brain dead, Ray will not be able to follow my wishes and have me taken off life support. As my nieces grow up and see up together, my homophobic brother will be able to claim that Ray and I are merely roommates and we will have no legal marriage to refute him.
Are these wrong reasons for wanting marriage? By whose measure are they wrong?
Secondly, to address her first part of that quote. In her eyes, marriage has devalued in recent years. She asks why people would even want to fight for the right. I would counter with the claim that religion has moved so far off its initial teachings in recent years, why would anyone want to fight for the right to practice their religion of choice?
The point being, it's not my right to deny others rights simply because I don't see why they want them. If there is an inequality, it should be righted.
Thirdly, the idea of family. I am a firm and ardent believer that friends can become family, much as she believes. But my 'adopted' family of friends, the sisters and brothers I've found here, are not the same as my legal family. My blood family.
Here's an example: I came out to my friends-family, people I am still close to, when I was in high school. It took nearly six years for my to come out to my parents, and I still have not done so to my brothers, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my grandparents. My mother could not understand why: in her eyes, blood family will always have to be there for you, while friends might ridicule or scorn. In my eyes, blood family will always be there, either for you or against you, but friends and even friends-family can leave and lose touch and I can still go on.
I don't know if that made sense outside my own head, I'm sorry. I tried.
Fourth and finally, elsewhere in her post, she had this to say:
"[...]but when people act as such? So much destruction and war already going on with the world? Do we really need our own contention in the nation?"
I agree wholeheartedly, and equally agree that violence at protests is to be abhorred. But I also approach this statement from the other side: with so much destruction and war, so much hate and death, WHY do you deny ANYONE the right to openly declare their love and commitment? Keith Olbermann's closing segment tonight argued this so much more eloquently than I ever could, and I will not even attempt it. I will link to his clip when it inevitably appears online, and may even summon the courage to comment to this young lady's post with that clip. I am honestly in tears right now: tears of frustration, tears of anger, tears of hopelessness. I have lost any clear articulation, so I leave you with a quote from earlier in Olbermann's Countdown:
"Why would anyone want to oppose happiness in a lonely and unhappy world?" - Keith Olbermann