Kissing in a Tree

Everyone I know in California is getting married this weekend. Everyone queer, that is. 

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Even some of my heterosexual friends are getting in on the action, because no one wants to miss the groovy free-love-and-a-license party down at City Hall.

There are some spoilsports, of course. The County Clerk of Bakersfield, (our Country-Western music epicenter!), has outlawed ALL wedding ceremonies  so she wouldn't have to face the horror— the horror, I tell you!— of watching a groom and a groom kiss each other with tears in their eyes. 

Or, maybe her phobia is dykes in tuxes. She says she "doesn't have the resources" to perform marriages of any kind, but behind everyone's back, she was writing a right-wing freaker group begging for solace and legal support.

I can't believe someone this ignorant is still hanging around the State bureaucracy, a gay enclave if there ever was one.

Back in San Francisco, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when Daughers of Bilitis founders, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon got married in City Hall yesterday, by the studly mayor who started the whole gay wedding stampede in 2004, Gavin Newsom. 

Del and Phyll are so frail, at their age, it makes you choke up to think of how they've been together since the 1950s, asking for nothing more than a little respect. They are more radical than young people a third their age! 

In one California local newspaper after the next, we see the photo story behind gay marriage: it's largely an elderly revolution. These are couples who've been together for decades, coping with the health and legacy issues than any old person does, wanting their beloved to be by their side without harangue and humiliation.

I remember when Newsom first declared San Francisco a "get married!" zone; it was Valentine's Day and the whole city spontaneously broke out in red balloons and pink garlands. You couldn't walk down the streets without people smiling at you like they'd just been dusted with sugar and kissed by the Easter Bunny. It felt as if, for one day, Love Prevailed. And that was a real love, not a romance, because we were celebrating a long-overdue social justice that would not be denied.

Newsom's wedding licenses were subsequently scrapped by the state, under pressure from the homophobic evangelical lobby— and for the five zillionth time, marriage activists went back to the drawing boards... how many times do we have to say, Yes, I Do?  

This time, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, our improbable governor, cannot put on the pretense that he gives a shit about the Haters. (This is a guy who gave Oui Magazine an interview in 1977, his weightlifting prime, boasting that American men were too uptight about getting their dicks sucked by other guys; that it's not such a big deal in Austria... really!)

So, marriage licenses for all, freshly minted, are finally here. It's already a fact in life in so many states and countries; soon the only hold-outs are going to look antediluvian.

However, there are good friends and lovers... who just don't wanna get married. They are all for justice under the law— and toasting the bride next door—  but they don't want to be swept into the nuptial tent themselves.

One of our readers, Chris, commented on a previous post:

What should I do about my long-term lesbian relationship? My wife keeps saying she wants to get married, and I don’t, because I think marriage is bullshit. It's propagated by a misguided human delusion that we won’t die alone and that we can belong to someone—or whatever people who believe in marriage think.

Chris isn't the only one to wring her hands and hide from the bouquet toss.

I'm not married myself. I never thought twice about getting married, to a man or a woman, for the first few decades of my life. It was never part of my parents' scheme for me, nor did I feel any peer pressure in the 70s, when I was first falling in love. I came of age at a time when weddings were seen as square, anti-feminist, state-pimping bullshit.

My friends who did tie the knot, squirmed as they made their announcement, apologized profusely, and choked out explanations that their parents were putting in the screws.

I patted them on the back and said, "Hey, don't worry about me; I'm your friend no matter what!" As if they had admitted war crimes!

Marriage was seen, in my milieu, as a bourgeois millstone, likely to end in divorce, that was better left uncommented upon, for the sake of sparing everyone the humiliation.

I never went to a family wedding... how bizarre, in retrospect!  My single (divorced) mom must have been more of a bohemian than I realized. She certainly rolled her eyes every time the topic came up.

The first wedding event I ever attended, I was 30, and it was an "illegal" lesbian ritual. (And yes, they split up in less than a year). I remember how corny I found the ceremony; we were supposed to sing their one-syllable names out loud, like a chant, as I sweated and stared into my lap to hide my mortification.

I especially get vexed about marital vows. I hate vows that invoke God; I hate vows that insist the betrothed renounce all others— I always take that personally, even though I'm not supposed to.

I hate the part where someone says they've never loved like this before, and they never will again. Is love really that small and exclusive?

Mostly, I rue those vain promises that are utterly impossible to keep. I feel like screaming into the chapel, "How are you going to live with yourself when you fail? What do you do when you find out this is a child's fantasy?"

The romantic delusions are what twist my gut, and leave me anxiously awaiting the other shoe to drop. The best thing to do, I've found, is politely decline all wedding invitations, and just send my best. I'm always the first person the newlyweds call when they're fighting like cats and dogs.

And yet...

I may someday get married, if it becomes financially or legally beneficial, and I can't negotiate a fairer solution. So far I've worked my way around it, through other legal declarations!

I've already blustered my way into hospitals when my lover was injured at work, saying I was "his wife," because there was no way I was going to endure a roadblock.

At those times, I worked myself into an inner hysteria, thinking about the discrimination I'd face if we were a same-sex couple.

When Chris wrote her question, it made me think, "What does her lover really want, what does she want?"

For some people, a marriage proposal, more than anything else, means, 'I Love You, Above All Others, You are My Destiny." What they want, more than anything, is that emotional dedication. They will find temporary succor in a wedding, but if they're captive to their own demons, that insecurity will never leave them.

How do you make your lover feel secure— and what part is their responsibility? You can never reassure an insatiable lover enough; and conversely, there are spouses who are such liars and cheats that they would put King Solomon on edge with their antics.

Some lovers, who are in a financially unequal relationships, want legal security. They don't want to be discounted as a SAHM or dedicated muse, if the shit hits the fan.

Then there's the unexpected illnesses, deaths, suicides, that beg for the protection of  lover-positive law. Some of the most brutal cases of injustice I've witnessed were instances when one partner lost her beloved suddenly, and the long-estranged "blood family" came swooping in, and took everything away, from snapshots to the family car.

For all these reasons, I embrace an evenhanded marital law, the one decent thing a wedding provides.

Justice is direct; it's rather beautiful to behold— but the romantic bundle that often goes along with people's hitching papers is another beast entirely. It's probably worth a few heart-to-hearts to get to the bottom of it.

"What do I want this marriage? What are my worst fears— and most delicate hopes?" If you can't bare your breast about these things, it's probably a bad time to get married.

I, personally, was always attracted to the wedding dress. The party of it all. Then I realized that anyone could buy one, wear several, and march down the street in the Doo-Dah Parade.

I also envied the way that weddings make your long-lost friends come out of the woodwork. There are people in my life, miles away, who I miss terribly, and yet the only time they travel to California is when some high school pal is getting married. I could fucking give birth to a chicken and it wouldn't inspire them to budge an inch. Only weddings get their ass on the tarmac. Weddings.... and funerals— and I really hope it doesn't come to that!

Which brings us back to dying alone. I love the existential certainty of that fact— I don't want to die crowded.

But from the other side of the deathbed, I know that being a fierce advocate for my dear ones, to keep them out of pain, to speak for them when they can't, to rattle the cage when they are too weak— that's something I'll always treasure, and fight to protect. It doesn't mean "marriage," per se, it means legal respect for the diversity of our chosen families. You can keep the cake-topper; I'll take the equality.

Update:  Arnold's Oui interview used to be on the Internet in its entirety, perfectly scanned. I read it during his gubernatorial run. I remember chuckling over his exasperation with North American men's homophobia, as opposed to his "easy cum, easy go" attitude that he credited to his European background. Anyway, all that remains for the Google searcher is The Smoking Gun's partial summary of the wide-ranging interview, which is the link I provided. They took down the pages they had scanned before. My guess is, the material is owned by Playboy, who owned Oui. PB probably issued an injunction. You can also find pricey copies of this issue for sale on Ebay!

Comments

[Anarcissie]

One of the things people contemplating marriage ought to look into are the many legal ramifications of marriage, which vary considerably from country to country and from state to state. It's not just the goofy romantic thing pushed by the media and the culture for the last century or so. The laws in most jurisdictions are complicated and may be surprising. Check out the fine print before you sign on the dotted line.

This is all aside from the dubious cultural and political aspects of marriage. Those you can shrug off. The law is a lot harder to ignore, especially should the aforesaid shit hit the fan.

Hate to be so rational this early in the morning, but duty calls.

[Gina]

Aww, when I renounced all others yesterday Susie, we both knew that didn't include you. ;)

[Liz Clarke]

It is posts like this that make me such a fan. Thanks, Susie ... your common sense is SO HOT!

I've done the long-term monogamous gig that ended, rather predictably, in tears and eventual friendship. I've done sort of "open-ended, dancing on the edges of poly" dating. I've been single. I've watched so many others come together and
come apart.

The legal partnership agreement that my same-sex partner and I drew up at the beginning of our long-term relationship worked perfectly when it came time to end it. We also had powers of attorney for property and health care put in place.
Interestingly, these are still in place for both of us as no one has come along in a permanent sense to fulfill that kind of role.

This business of being "owned" or "belonging" to another person irks me, not surprisingly, but I'll leave that whole feminist anger management piece aside for now. More pressing it seems is your excellent question of "What do you want out of marriage"? A scary question for people to whom marriage is an end point, a target, a life goal to be reached. I worry that people "work" at their relationship up to the point of "I do" and then figure, well, my work here is done. Got'em! No one moves forward, no more growth ... stagnation.

That is my nightmare scenario. On the upside, I do know of many long-term couples, straight and not, married and not, who see commitment, however they define it, as a signpost rather than an endpoint of that strange and fantastic voyage of "relationship". Their continous improvement efforts warm my heart and give me hope.

I applaud that my American friends are, in some states, being at least offered the choice of perceived social equality. It is validating to be included, to be on equal footing, with one's neighbours. The power of this cannot be overstated
within a community that has long felt excluded and ostracized, often by our own immediate families, by reactive and hysterical community members and by religious institutions.

And, of course, I too am a sucker for the romanticism of it ... what fool wouldn't want to imagine that there could be some decent, kind, adventurous individual out there who'd be willing to say "yes, and for the rest of my life, yes".

However, when I breathe deeply, and remove the wedding-induced tears from my rose-coloured glasses, I know that the confetti biodegrades, as does the rice, and reality boils down to how you treat each other at your worst, and best, when you are together and when you are apart. No vow, no piece of paper, is going to guarantee consistency from we frail and flawed human beings. We can promise to do our best for each other and ourselves, and to behave respectfully and with honesty. I'm not sure, if the opportunity should ever arise for me in the future, that I could ever commit to more than this, given what I've seen and what I know to be true about human behaviour.

Ooops ... I kinda teed off on this ... sorry ... I guess this must be a hot button for me. :)

[Sandrino]

What I find ridiculous is all this crap about protecting marriage, protecting it from what? I've been married for 24 years, how does anyone else's ability to marry or not affect my marriage? How can something you can do while drunk, in a drive through chapel in Vegas, officiated by an Elvis impersonator be sacred? Get real!

The folks running around as if their hair was on fire should at least have enough balls to say what they really mean, they don't want queer folk to marry. Its just prejudice, plain and simple. But it is hard to admit that you are prejudiced, and people won't take you as seriously so they pull the "protection of marriage" excuse. I call it bullshit!

[Janet]

My spouse and I are one of those "financially unequal" couples -- he's permanently disabled, so we got married so I could put him on my medical insurance, and so he'll have a bit of financial security if anything ever happens to me. And we felt a little abashed about doing so, because we felt that we were taking advantage of a loophole in the law that allows big weird kinky genderbent polyamorous bisexuals to get married as long as they have three X's and a Y between them.

The county clerk didn't notice when she told us, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," that we grinned at each other, because *we* knew that I was the husband and he the wife even if she didn't.

Our first thought, spoken almost in unison when we heard the wonderful news about the California law: "Oh, good, now we don't have to feel guilty any more because we got to do it when all our friends couldn't."

But would we have done it if not for our financial/legal uncertainties? Probably not. Neither of us believes that government belongs in the marriage business. Why not have civil unions -- a subtype of business partnership -- for anyone who wants them and is legally able to make a binding agreement, and save marriage for the religious institutions where it belongs?

[Peter Throckmorton]

We've been together for over four years now and are dedicated to a life together. She is 20 years younger than I and plans to support me in my retirement. On my father's deathbed she whispered in his ear that she promised to take care of me in his stead. To me, that was more of a marriage than the state can bestow.

I have two het divorces behind me - neither marriage lasted as long as my current unmarried relationship. My partner spent part of her life as a dyke and is politically uninterested in the institution of marriage.

We've both felt guilty on those times when she has told me that if I become old and frail and need the medical benefits, or some similar situation, that she will marry me. Het privilege is an uncomfortable fit when you're an activist for sexual minority rights.

Some folks don't get it when a male with a female partner such as myself get all misty-eyed with the news in California, but we're both bi [and poly and abcxyz] and I think it would be grand to dream of a day when we could welcome a man or woman of our dreams into our relationship on a formal basis. Perhaps during my son's life - but I'm very happy to see these trailblazing steps being taken now.

[Sue Katz]

Another great post. Marriage forces us to invite the state and/or church into our bedrooms so that we can get all those economic and legal rights. I agree with all you say, Susie, and add that this whole concept of marrying for, say, your lover's health insurance (a frequent "excuse") begs the question of why we don't all have health coverage and what single people are supposed to do. If it's something that can be shared, why shouldn't each person be able to select the one with whom to share, based on their own criteria. My best friends are as close to me as my lover and might need the insurance more. I'm weary of so many resources being put into gaining access to this limited, property-based institution of marriage, although obviously I hate the discrimination. Marriage is an institution of exclusion: it was only in 2000 that the last miscegenation (inter-racial marriage) state law was taken off the books. Sigh,
Sue
ps: Did you get the general message from the Typepad CEO this morning? I wonder if he read your blog and it kicked open his "mouth."

[David Maclaine]

As marriage law lurches toward something like sanity, this move is meaningful because it's at odds with the almost 800-year captivity of the institution by the religious powers that be. As someone who has spent a couple of years immersed in the 9th and 10th century, when the powerful women I've been writing about lived, I get irritated by so-called "traditionalists" who sincerely believe that marriage is fundamentally a religious matter. You don't get any more religious than the heart of the age of faith, but early medieval marriage was an agreement between two families, sealed by an exchange of property. In fact, the woman I'm writing about in my next chapter, the Empress Engleberga, a commanding diplomatic figure of the mid to late 9th century, apparently had to forge some documents to show a property exchange that never happened just to secure her place as a "real" wife, when in fact she was just the beloved mistress of her husband's teen years who became indispensible to him. But Engelberga's brother-in-law had his life wrecked because he couldn't do the same thing with his early spousal equivalent, because one of the earliest interferring Popes stepped in when he wanted to marry her properly, thwarting his divorce from a wife he had married later for political reasons. Their attempted split was nastier than any celebrity break-up you see today, unless I've missed gossip about some star claiming his wife had committed incest with her brother prior to the marriage, but only via anal sex, so she arrived intacta, but had also conceived and then aborted a child by luring her brother's sperm to her womb by magical means. Damned interferring Bishop Hincmar said the Virgin Mary had already used up the only available Magical Impregnation Card. But, then again, I'm writing about an age when the women of Ireland lived under the most liberal rules allowing women to divorce their husbands to be found anywhere in Europe. And in case you want to blame the breakdown of modern morality for our complex families, my current subject, who was one of those good Irish Christians, was married to three men in succession, had a son by each of them, and had her son by marriage number one marry a daughter (by another marriage) of husband number three, and her own daughter marry her second husband after she had divorced him (said daughter was that ex-husband's fourth documented wife). Oh, and did I mention that that second husband was her first husband's step-son, born to a prior wife in her prior marriage. Yeah, right, marriage is really such a lifetime commitment between one man and one woman. It's a contract made for the sake of family, and gets complicated enough without bringing God into it.

[Lauren]

Once again, I am in total agreement. Weddings seem like such a farce to me when so many people who go through them end right back up at the county clerk's office going through the divorce within a few or a dozen years. The only thing that really matters in a relationship is the commitments you make to each other behind closed doors and whether or not you follow through with them.

My grandmothers feel the same way, they have been together for 18 years now and while they wear "wedding rings" they are entirely disinterested in silly ceremonies and legal documents. Even when Dot was so sick with cancer and grandma was terrified she would lose her and all of their future plans together, it was Dot who was looking out for her, putting the house and the cars in my Grandma's name in case the chemo didn't work. That's real trust, the kind that a ceremony or a marriage license just doesn't magically grant to two people.

[Martina]

I just got married to my girl!

Omg, it was so much calmer than I expected. This is Humboldt County.

One news camera, not one protester (though we did see exactly ONE protester on TV, not in
person.) Everyone at the county building was incredibly kind, I mean, downright solicitous.

There was this reverent vibe in the air--like everyone acknowledged that we had been wronged for so long that they wanted to compensate somehow. Every couple got an individual escort to walk them from the marriage license office downstairs to where the ceremonies were held.

On the way, ours, who reminded me of a kindergarten teacher, asked how we felt about news cameras, because they had set up a private area for people to have ceremonies who didn't want to be on the local news.

They were obviously set up for raving masses--so there was this giant sense of relief on everyone's part that it was so calm, and it was really organized. In the end, it was just super-giddy people standing around the courthouse steps, getting married, crying, and embracing.

Our officiant was super-nice, and very patient with Grandpa-- who is 95 years old and shuffles very slowly-- and our loud, motorcycle-riding friends who were just laughing their heads off and taking pictures of everyone. We were quite the contingent.

During our vows, I choked on the words "lawfully wedded spouse." I could barely get them out. And that's what it was for me-- a political act of finally claiming a privilege and the rights that come with it, more than a commitment, which I already made to Terra years ago.

I know that riding off into the sunset with that one person who will be your only love is a childish fantasy. (Jesus, after all I've shared with you over the years, Susie, YOU know that I know that emotional and physical monogamy is an impossible ideal.) But my vows are more an intention to do and be my best. That's the closest anyone can get, I guess.

[Susan]

My (male) partner and I got married 20 years ago for all the legal reasons--he needed my health benefits, we were contemplating buying a house, starting to worry exactly what our rights would be after living together nearly 10 years, etc.

So one weekend we did it, and Monday morning I came to work with my new gold ring and announced we'd eloped. Everyone congratulated me, teary-eyed. How romantic! Right away I signed him up for health benefits. Since that day, I've barged into hospitals saying "I'm his wife",we file a joint income tax return, his family respects me, my parents love their son-in-law--and not once, NOT ONCE have either of us ever been asked to show our marriage certificate. Not even in the personal office, when I signed him up for health benefits. Not once.

We wonder: hey, why did we bother? We could have just said we were married, and everyone would have believed us. Well, maybe there will come a time when we'll need to show someone that marriage license; it might yet come in handy.

Just goes to show you that really, all a het couple has to do is flash a ring and say they're married, and everyone wants to throw them a party. Try it! But it'll be a long time before that happens to gay couples, so it is so great that they can now get that piece of paper, which I imagine they'll have to show many times . . .

[Rita Alfonso]

I went down to city hall in SF yesterday and experienced some of the celebrations first hand. Instantly, a bunch of businesses had sprung up around the ceremonies -- photographers and honeymoon resort companies, for example. They were there peddling their wares in the shade under their nice tents while I stood baking in the sun.

And I couldn't help but notice how many more gay male couples were getting married. In the space of about an hour and a half I think I saw only one or two lesbian couples, but half a dozen gay male couples. I wonder what that's about?

I must admit that it felt a little strange -- a little like being on the set of a futuristic, dystopic movie.

Now that we have marriage in CA, whatever will the mainstream gay movement fight for?

[Linda Rowland-Jones]

O lordy, lordy. Jay and Cliff are tying the knot, after 28 years together, sometime before the Nov. election. Of course they are really already married, like any couple that's been together for such a long time. Their reason is the historic import, the political statement, and we're thrilled to be invited to the nuptials. We're hoping they decide to do it, again, at the Wedding Tree (where as you know you and Jon also have an open invitation) with Toby officiating. Someday, dear Susie, I'm going to tie you down and make the two of you watch our wedding video (it's only 20 minutes!) Yes, we can still watch it, 12 years on...a pagan celebration of love and belonging.
thx so much also for the Cyd Charisse piece, such a classy long-legged dame. I wanna dance like that!
xoxoxox

[Linda Rowland-Jones]

ok, ok, strike that word "belonging" too many associations...

"a pagan celebration of love and community"

;-)

[Natty Soltesz]

Susie,

Thanks for a thoughtful article.

I couldn't find evidence, however, to Schwarzenegger's "boasting that American men were too uptight about getting their dicks sucked by other guys; that it's not such a big deal in Austria..." Not in the LA Weekly article you linked to, and not when I Googled around. This kind of stuff is important to me! So if you can find a hard reference to it, please let me know.

Natty Soltesz

[Christopher Parker]

1. Amen on just restricting government to issuing civil unions. So much cleaner - solves the whole problem and a bunch besides and keeps the government out of the marriage business, which they shouldn't be anyway (and for most part they aren't - they just recognize [most] of what religions do).

2. Yea, why ARE they so bent out of shape about the threat to marriage of 2 truly loving people. Could be just prejudice (plenty of that), but I do believe they do actually mean what they say. That same gender marriage really DOES threaten THEIR IDEA of marriage. Because the key fact of marriage - as perceived by many conservatives - is that it is a social unit, ie an organizing model for society - in fact, the ideal. More specifically - it is keeping women from being independent. Men, too, of course. But the old ideal is to keep women subjugated. Even though that view had moderated, even in the conservative community, I think this is where the EMOTION comes from, the sense of threat. Because why do they care so much if it's just prejudice. I have my own prejudices (for instance, against New Yorkers), but I don't really care until it starts to affect me (their driving). Not that I support being prejudiced, really (just admitting the truth here). So my question always has been how is it effecting people, what are they afraid of. And this is the answer I've come up with. A drunk marriage in Las Vegas by an Elvis impersonator still can be seen as entering an unequal bond that keeps everyone in order and prevents all the immorality that comes from freedom and independence. A same sex marriage cannot be seen that way, because (from afar) there is no opportunity for the husband provide balance for the women, which means to keep her subjugated.

[susie Bright]

Mea Culpa! It was "Oui" Magazine, not "Penthouse," and 1977, around the time his film "Pumping Iron" came out.

I've made the correction in the post, but here's a little more about it:

Arnold's "Oui" interview used to be on the Internet in its entirety, perfectly scanned. I read it during his gubernatorial run. I remember chuckling over his exasperation with North American men's homophobia, as opposed to his "easy cum, easy go" attitude that he credited to his European background. Anyway, all that remains for the Google searcher is "The Smoking Gun's" partial summary of the wide-ranging interview, which is the link I provided. They took down the pages they had scanned before. My guess is, the material is owned by Playboy, who owned Oui. PB probably issued an injunction. You can also find pricey copies of this issue for sale on Ebay!

[Greta Christina]

Wow. I could comment on this for hours. Especially since Ingrid and I just got same-sex married yesterday. But I'm not going to. I just want to say this:

Susie, you have it dead-on right about vows.

I have NEVER understood why all marrying couples don't write their own vows. And I am especially baffled when couples throw huge "personalized" extravaganzas planned with obsessive attention to detail, down to the color of the bridesmaid's hair ornaments... but when it comes to the vows, they essentially just shrug and say, "Oh, whatever, we'll just do what everyone else does."

I mean... it's your VOWS. It's the thing you're promising. It's the reason you're there, and the reason everyone else is there with you. In the months you're spending poring over catering menus and deciding on stuffed mushrooms versus goat cheese tartlets, you're not going to spend a couple of evenings thinking about why exactly you're doing this and what exactly you're promising each other?

That was actually one of the weird things about the City Hall wedding. When you get married at City Hall by a City Hall officiant (at least in San Francisco), you have to use the vows that are written by the state. They're actually very nice vows, but it's a little weird to promise something that somebody else wrote for you. I'm very glad that, when we had our big committment ceremony a couple years ago (what we tend to think of as our "real" wedding, even though it wasn't legal), we spent a lot of time writing our own vows. It made us think carefully about what we were doing and why, and I think it was one of the main reasons the ceremony was so meaningful and made such a difference in our lives.

I do understand that many people have religious reasons for doing traditional vows, that it's important to their religious practice to say certain pre-set words and make certain pre-set promises when they get married. But... well, actually, that's part of my problem with religion. All too often it requires people to just do what they're told without thinking.

[Helen Behar]

I just recently tried to have my heterosexual parter signed on to my medical insurance benefits. (actually to have him buy into the slight discount of our still outrageously expensive and lousy Blue Shield plan) Turns out that in CA., you either need to be same gender partners, or over the age of 62 for this to be possible. I totally get why this was the case of course- prior to the new sanctions of gay marriages- but NOW- I'm wondering what will happen to domestic partner benefits? Will they just go bye, bye- and you'll HAVE to be married gay or straight to recieve partner benifits?
Michael Moore can take this one on...

[C.S. Lewiston]

This article and the comments which followed would make a great chapter for a book on marriage, same-sex and otherwise.

When I was in high school, I remember seeing a film produced in 1968 or so, where they showed the marriage of a gay male couple. Of course it wasn't legal then, but it blew my little mind nonetheless!

I used to believe that a marriage was just a relationship which was legally recognized by the state. Recently I cracked open Laura Kipnis' polemic, Against Love. I've only read part of the first chapter, but she's already torn the institution of marriage, and the mass-media monogamous-coupledom propaganda network several new ones.

[lawrence]

The stuff about illness is important. I think Susie sums it up well. For me, for the last few years, the most important personal relationship I've had has been with my business partner. We long ago figured out that we didn't want to be romantic partners, but we work very well together. For us, getting a license from city hall meant incorporating our software business and formalizing what had, till then, been an informal business arrangement. We are not lovers, but if, tomorrow, I get hit by a car and end up in the hospital, she is the person who'd most want to come visit me, and she is the person I'd most want to have come visit. There are ways of getting her the legal right to do that, but none that are as easy and simple as getting married. I do wish the state (every level of government) was less biased. I do wish there were a variety of legal statuses that the state handed out easily, rather than the one standard status of marriage. I imagine greater variety of such statuses will arrive one day. This, it seems to me, is one of the ways that the gay-marriage movement is helping heterosexuals - eroding that monolithic status called marriage and making the public confront the reality of the diversity of people's lives.

[lawrence]

"I have NEVER understood why all marrying couples don't write their own vows.... I mean... it's your VOWS. It's the thing you're promising. It's the reason you're there, and the reason everyone else is there with you."

Kind of. But your ability to make promises that are legally effective is limited by the state. You are not negotiating a contract. Legally, marriage is a status, not a contract - it can be changed by the state, and everyone married is effected by the change. If it was a contract, then all existing marriages would be unaffected by changes that the state makes, and only new couples would be affected. Under a contract, the terms are defined when you sign, and can not be changed during the life of the contract, without the written consent of all signing parties.

I could imagine a cynic easily taking the opposite view of yours - why bother ever writing your own vows, when, in fact, the state holds all the real power in its hands?

Of course, you can promise anything that you like to your partner. But none of it will have the force of law.

[Billy]

I'm disappointed with the fear and loathing toward marriage and commitment that comes out in these discussions. It reminds me WAY too much of the right wing religious ranting about gay and alternate lifestyles (whatever that might be). Actually it sounds exactly like it, as in, "I don't like and/or understand it so it's wrong". What's wrong with "It's not for me"? No one should get married just to get married. How many people are going to tell the story of their bad marriage to "prove" that marriage is a bad idea? That's like saying "tattoos are stupid because I got a tasmanian devil smoking a joint when I was 16, and later regretted it" (you can find plenty of people saying that too).

I was married and divorced to a wonderful woman when I was younger. The problem was my flakiness and immaturity, not "the institution". I'm happily married now. I don't have any grudge against people who don't want to marry, or live a different life. I'm reminded of the saying, "the difference between tattooed people and non-tattooed people is that the tattooed people don't care that you don't have any tattoos".

I'm a fan of your work, having met you at signings several times and own most of your books. I just thought the conversation was getting a little one sided.

[Chris]

HAY! Susie, I just now got back over here! Thank you for addressing my questions, my confusion, and my conflicts.

Well, after some serious contemplation, I came to the realization that, whatever else the institution is or isn't, its symbolism is something that's so meaningful for so many of us that, when my partner asked me again last night about our getting over to Norwalk to apply for our license, I looked at her and knew to the depth of my being that there was no one who is more my family than she is. Not my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles, nor dearest friends. She is the one I will follow and will lead and will join for the rest of my life, and she is the one who will be my wife.