My Monthly “Lack of Marriage Equality Sucks” Boo-Hoo

26 Oct 2008 By

It pisses me off that straight people can run off to a courthouse and get married on a whim. It pisses me off that straight people can just decide to get married one day and be married the next.

I feel guilty for begrudging them for taking advantage of something that is freely available to them. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be freely available to them.

It’s not that I’m not happy for people who are happy and want to commit like that.

I try to warn myself against needing a marriage license for validation of my relationship. It’s not so much the validation as it is the “Oh, shit, if something disastrous happens tomorrow, my life as I know it is gone because we have no legal safety net.”

I know it’s not fair to assume straight people take that for granted. It’s unreasonable to ask them to not get married on principle. There is real benefit to being married.

It’s not the ceremony, or the idea that the ceremony is somehow not-quite because it carries no legal weight. We’ll have the ceremony. Believe you me, we are having a ceremony. I want some benefits.

My girl crocheted me a candy corn because I asked her to. That’s how in love we are.

It’s just not fucking fair.

I’m tired of this shit.

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  • http://www.becauseemilysaysso.blogspot.com Emily

    As a straight girl who’s on your side on this one, I hope that the tide turns soon.

    And crocheting a candy corn? That IS true love.

  • http://www.dizzyingintellect.com Tanya

    I’ve never wanted to run off and get married, and I wish so much that I could give you my chance.

  • http://www.caseyoc.info Casey

    I have to think you’re going to get your chance, given time. Hopefully a lot sooner, rather than later.

    In the interim, would you guys consider moving to a state that does allow gay marriage?

  • http://mysocalledblog.com Lachlan

    I feel your pain.

    It kills Bayou and I to be so close to California and yet, so far (in terms of this single issue).

    We have talked about relocating, but it would take a lot of planning and money, and I suspect that it would be cheaper to get the power of atty, etc etc than to move.

  • kathy

    Honey, I’m sorry. It isn’t fair and it does suck and none of the assholes who are preventing you from enjoying it deserve to have it themselves.

    Move to Canada?

  • http://swirlspice.com Erica

    I like to think we’ll get the chance to, but DAMN. Honestly, the way Minnesota is, I can’t tell. Might almost be worse because I feel like we get a lot of false hope here.

    In the interim, would you guys consider moving to a state that does allow gay marriage? — We rather regularly toss around the idea of moving, but whether picking a state that has legal marriage equality is compatible with all our other requirements is yet to be determined. I honestly don’t know if we’d move just to be able to get married.

    Thanks, y’all, for tolerating my temper tantrum. I know I’m mostly preaching to the choir here.

  • http://kazoofus.com KathyHowe

    My comment is in line with Tanya’s. I’ve been married and don’t have a desire to go down that road again. I wish you could give you my unwanted aisle walks because I know you would put them to very, very good use.

  • http://neocarla.com neoCarla

    I’m tired of it too. I’m CERTAIN I’ll need to move out of the state of Texas to have the marriage equality I want.

  • tea

    I can’t begin to imagine your level of frustration. I too think it’s absurd for two people as committed and in love as you and M_tm to not be allowed by the F*ing GOVERNMENT to marry.

    And candy corn crochet is a sign of true love.

    PS – my boss and her partner went to CA to get married two weeks ago and honeymooned in Nova Scotia.

  • nat

    the candy corn says it all. that’s love. i really hope someday you two can be official!

  • http://liminalmusings.com Deirdre

    I am so sorry. It truly is not fair and I hope someday you’ll be able to enter into a legal union.

    In the meantime, what have you done to bind yourselves together with a mishmash of legal documents – wills, power of attorney, medical decisions, etc? It’s weak, but still important and tangible.

  • http://swirlspice.com Erica

    In the mean time we haven’t done anything. Which makes me nervous. The basics are probably simpler than I’m imagining, but it overwhelms me to think about it. We have talked about it, and we have go-to resources. We just haven’t done it.

    Yeah, being bitter about the unfairness of it all doesn’t actually help protect us. ;)

  • Daniel

    I’m sorry to hear that you feel this way. However, saying that you can not get married is untrue. You can marry whoever you want, just like anyone else! However, since looong before our government has been around, Marriage has been and is the lifelong union of man and woman. I understand that you’ve chosen to pursue a romantic relationship with someone of your own sex, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of humanity has to alter it’s most basic institutions to suit it. If this is truly the path that you and your romantic interest have chosen, then there are going to be things that you can and cannot do. >_< Life can be hard sometimes. I usually don't post on this type of thing(I usually just get bigoted hate-mail thrown at me by people that simply have a different view on the matter), but I figured I would add a diverse response. Either way, whatever your decisions, have a good life :)

  • http://swirlspice.com Erica

    since looong before our government has been around, Marriage has been and is the lifelong union of man and woman

    This is simply not true in some societies and only partially true in others. So your argument holds no water whatsoever. But if you want to continue to defend the right of a man to acquire me in a business transaction between families, go for it.

    Life can be hard sometimes.

    Your patronization is, um, not appreciated.

  • Daniel

    Erica, my statement does hold water. The only known exception was a brief period in Rome. The one or two other examples that some people try to call Marriage were rituals or partnerships that were clearly distinguished from such. For all of human history civilizations -even those with little to no contact with each other- understood that promoting such a thing was not wise. It is known that Marriage is an institution not just for love, but for forming the ideal environment to raise a child. That environment has been unequivocally shown to be the biological parents of that child, with the next best case having a man and woman adopting a child that unfortunately has no parents to call their own. Today’s children form the adult future of society. Once we break this foundation of society, we all suffer. It has already been eroded by rates of divorce previously unimaginable, it doesn’t need more damage.
    Man, would you believe I somehow wandered onto this page late last night looking up chili recipes? lol This is a completely random place to offer my views on the matter, its just that I rarely see people standing up for differing ideas on this issue anymore.

    “Life can be hard sometimes.”
    Your patronization is, um, not appreciated.

    You’re right, that did come off as patronizing, I apologize >__> Instead of starting a huge thread here, I would like to give you a link to a document submitted to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in Quebec back in ’03 that I think does a good job explaining these points from a secular viewpoint. :)

  • Daniel

    I was going to post links to some threads that I thought displayed intelligent, in-depth cases on both sides as well, but most of them became dominated by extremists and hate-mongers. You had people screaming “Bigot!” at one and “Faggot!” at the other. <_< Good lord. Here's the link I was referencing above:

    http://www.marriageinstitute.ca/images/somerville.pdf

  • http://swirlspice.com Erica

    Yes, Daniel, I reject this information you’ve supplied. And I recommend you read, well, any book by Stephanie Coontz but specifically Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

    I do hope you enjoyed the chili.

  • Daniel

    Dear Erica,

    We can agree to disagree. I will definitely check out the book you recommend.

    Your chili recipe is great, the only thing I could think of to add might be corn. My friend Ani made some spicy TexMex chili last week and I was really surprised at how it’s sweetness added to the flavor, as my cooking teacher doesn’t use it in his!