Marriage & Why It Matters

Gary over at Declarations of Pride is one of my daily reads. He summarizes marriage and why it matters is a great post which I have shamelessly posted in its entirety for you below. His post is articulate and poignant and should be widely read!

Take a look at more of Gary's musings at Declarations of Pride.

Marriage: The Facts, And Why it Matters

People often wonder why I want to get married. Especially when so many heterosexual Americans want to get divorced?

The answer is simple: protection!

I want to protect everything I have invested my life in creating: property, relationships, my own future and the future of those I love. I wish for the federal safety-net that marriage creates for all my heterosexual counterparts. As a citizen of this great nation that speaks in lofty terms of equality for all, I want what is mine to claim as a birthright; I want the American Dream. Anything less is no more satisfactory to me than it would be to you.

I have paid my taxes. I have invested in the future of this land. I have been a good American. Following the promises of the dream, doing what I can to make opportunities for myself. I have worked hard. I have struggled an uphill climb. I have overcome stereotypes many of you haven't even thought of yet. I have resisted classification. I have exercised my right to vote. I have faithfully questioned my leaders. I have done what all of you have done, yet I am now considered less?

Now because I have been pushed, I spend all my time calling myself a fag. I wear my relationship on my sleeve, out there for all to see. Dan and I do everything we can to teach tolerance.. We never shared our relationship or our orientation with anyone before. It wasn't anyones business. We were basically very private by nature. We both let people get to know us first, and then shared if appropriate. Letting those around us have the moment where they realized on their own, "Oh, they are OK." Letting those around us see we are just a couple in love like every other couple. I always thought that approach better than being forceful about it.

Well that was then, and this is now!

Now I have a Homosexual Agenda to fulfill. And I have news for you right-wingers, I didn't have it before you pushed me in a corner and demanded I publicly defend my relationship of 14 years. That is when I got my agenda. It was given to me by you!

Before, I was happy to live and let live. We did our legal due. We spent thousands trying to protect our relationship. That was before I fully understood what our hetero friends got in exchange for a $20 bucks. I bet most of you don't even realize what you get for that twenty dollar marriage liscence? The federal government confers 1,138 rights and protections upon you, your spouse, and your family when that license is granted. I am sure many are skeptical of that number, I didn't make it up. It came from the Federal Government's General Accounting Office. Those rights are real. They are unique to the marriage contract, and they are guaranteed to every citizen. And that is where the division starts.

So many don't understand that rights in America are to be universal; guaranteed to every citizen under the law. Equal under the law is the other way it is expressed. Somewhere along our journey a percentage of Americans got confused, brainwashed, left-behind, whatever...And began to think of marriage as a religious doctrine not a civil construct.

This misunderstanding of the nature of marriage is what has gotten us to this point. Combine our need for salvation with our hate for things we don't' understand, and you have a straightforward American debate. This is a classic cycle we have played out over and over in our history. Whenever we are afraid of something or someone we don't understand we isolate them. Americans are not the fair-minded individuals they always claim to be. There is always some class of people unworthy of what the others have. We have lost our way, and that is why I speak on this so much.

I know this hate isn't for the sake of hate, its because of ignorance and lack of exposure. We are Americans. We all want the same pursuit of happiness. We all want the dream. We are all supposed to have a level climb to the dream. Unfortunately we often get in our own ways on the way to the field.

Christianity, and the mounting infusion of Baby-boomers going to church because they are getting closer to God is only making things worse. They want us to believe that marriage is about love and God. Well, it may be about love in this day and age, but within the last century that is not the case.

Marriage gets to party at the church. It gets a dress. It gets guests in pews. When the party is over, people will turn to God for guidance, but they turn to the state for a divorce!

To review; you come to the government to get married, and you go to the state to legally dissolve your marriage. You may go to church in between to help you nurture a loving relationship, but that is about as far as the relationship between faith and marriage goes.

Even then, they only function together because the church wants to make more followers. I know that is a cynical position to take, but we are talking about an organization, like any other with members and bills to pay. If you are going to continue to flourish you need to either solicit for new members or make them within your own ranks. Look at modern Evangelicals. Look at all the missions to convert the faithful to a particular belief system. Everyone looks to "convert" you and then pass the collection plate so you can express your gratitude for the experience. The business of God is about money in this era, faith is the product they are selling, but belive me they are selling something to you. And as Americans age, and they fear for their eternal souls in greater numbers, the churches have exploded and are garnering every greater political muscle on the nation and the Constitution.

You know I am right!

Off the point a bit, but true.

Need more in the way of reasons I demand Marriage Equality? Ok...Try these on for size:

* The right to make decisions on a partner's behalf in a medical emergency. Specifically, the states generally provide that spouses automatically assume this right in an emergency. If an individual is unmarried, the legal "next of kin" automatically assumes this right. This means, for example, that a gay man with a life partner of many years may be forced to accept the financial and medical decisions of a sibling or parent with whom he may have a distant or even hostile relationship.
* The right to take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to care for a seriously ill partner or parent of a partner. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 permits individuals to take such leave to care for ill spouses, children and parents but not a partner or a partner's parents.
* The right to petition for same-sex partners to immigrate.
* The right to assume parenting rights and responsibilities when children are brought into a family through birth, adoption, surrogacy or other means. For example, in most states, there is no law providing a noncustodial, nonbiological or nonadoptive parent's right to visit a child - or responsibility to provide financial support for that child - in the event of a breakup.
* The right to share equitably all jointly held property and debt in the event of a breakup, since there are no laws that cover the dissolution of domestic partnerships.
* Family-related Social security benefits, income and estate tax benefits, disability benefits, family-related military and veterans benefits and other important benefits.
* The right to inherit property from a partner in the absence of a will.
* The right to purchase continued health coverage for a domestic partner after the loss of a job.


Now those are just the highlights.

I ask you, if someone was coming in to tell you that because you are black, Jewish, red, green, yellow or white; you weren't going to get these rights, would you just sit back and accept it? If some supposedly equal peer came along and told you that Christians were no longer eligible to inherit property from their spouses, you wouldn't be as angry as me? Wouldn't you feel singled out if the government told you they were going to amend the constitution specifically to write you out of the society?

Sounds ludicrous doesn't it? It's not! It's happening right now; to me and millions of other gay Americans.

It is fundamentally wrong to add exclusive language to a document designed to guarantee the rights of all citizens. It is patently un-American. That is why it matters so much. This is not just about gay marriage. Its about who we are as a nation.

It matters to me because I have played by all the rules, and now some people are going to hijack God and use Him as the scapegoat to change the rules of the nation. Notice I said "nation" not game. The separation of church and state is one of our wisest principles, and it too is endangered by this movement. America is not God's country. It's not God's fault we live here in this democracy. It's not your job to judge on God's behalf. It's your job to love thy neighbor. It's your job not to discriminate in this the greatest land on the planet.

Its your job to live up to the American ideal, and American responsibilities.

Marriage matters to me because it lets me know that he will be safe and protected when I am gone. The same reason all those rights mean so much to you.