marriage equality – Page 9 – commonplacebook.com

Relationships and the Importance of Gay Marriage

Post author:HFM
Post published:April 26, 2002
Post category:GLBT Issues Politics Religion

This article in the New York Times, in a nutshell, explains what I’ve been saying for 15 years about why it is important for gay and lesbian people to be allowed to get married.

“Marriage, for instance, isn’t just about the relationship of two people. Other people have to recognize the couple as a couple. What it means to be married is that other people treat you like you’re married,” Professor Chwe says, noting that two people who never see each other may still be regarded by others as married. (Conversely, two people who consider themselves a couple may be denied recognition by others.)

The need for common knowledge means a wedding is more than the exchange of vows by two individuals. “When you go to a wedding, it’s not just about you seeing the two people getting married. It’s also very important that you know that other people know,” Professor Chwe says. That’s why the vows themselves matter less than the ceremony.

“You might have a New Age reading or you can have a very traditional Catholic wedding. But having everyone being together in a wedding is extremely important, regardless of what is said,” Professor Chwe notes. “You’d never have a wedding by just sending a fax to everybody.”

Michelangelo Signorile

Post author:HFM
Post published:June 5, 2001
Post category:GLBT Issues Media

I love Michelangelo Signorile. I wish I had a girlfriend just like him. Only she would be a girl, of course.

Same-Sex Marriage

Post author:HFM
Post published:May 14, 1996
Post category:GLBT Issues Media Politics

The biggest fallacy in this debate is the belief that gay men and lesbians aren’t able to get married right now. Not only are there thousands of married gay and lesbian couples, they’ve been getting married for decades.

There are several aspects to marriage; among them a legal aspect, a religious aspect, a social aspect, and a family aspect. But at the heart of all of these layers, there is the vow; the commitment that two people make to live in love, respect, and fidelity.

Gay men and lesbians have been making and keeping that vow faithfully for a long time. It is only recently that they have started to incorporate other aspects of marriage into that vow by including their communities and families in their commitment ceremonies. And there are at ten ministers here in Indianapolis that perform religious commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples, and hundreds of local couples that have participated in those ceremonies.

In pursuing the right to have our marriages legally recognized, gay men and lesbians aren’t asking for a special right or consideration.

What we do want is to legally protect our unions in the same way heterosexual couples do; to have the benefit of wills and trusts, to be able to see our spouse in the hospital in an emergency. We want to protect our families from harm, as loving, caring people do.

No matter what happens in Hawaii, or how many laws banning same-sex unions get passed in different states, gay and lesbian marriage will not be prevented because it already exists, and will continue to. This issue will never disappear, and eventually common sense will prevail. The loving unions that we share will be recognized for what they are.

I have to object to an uneducated and extremely offensive quote from your article: “But others point out that marriage could encourage homosexual couples to build stable, mutually supportive lives.” This implies that we can’t or don’t do that now, and perpetuates the false stereotype that gay men and lesbians are more promiscuous than their heterosexual counterparts.