Today there's a blog carnival going on about gay marriage, to raise awareness about the fight to defeat proposition 8 in California. I'm a married lesbian. How can I not write? So I'm writing.
But I'm not really sure what it is I want to say. I chose to marry because I am a lesbian. I wanted to build a home with A. and raise children with her and marriage was the way to get, oh, legitimacy, yeah, but that's not even the word I want. I wanted the mojo of all our family and friends in one place making it so that our relationship became a structure strong enough to raise kids in. It's a ritual magic I believe in. I wanted to stand up with A. and turn us into a family. I wanted the pictures to show the kids we hadn't conceived yet. I wanted my cousins to get the same invitations in the mail that they'd sent me. Well, for their first weddings, anyway.
I have my doubts about civil marriage, but that doesn't matter at all. It is entirely irrelevant to this post. What matters is that in California there are some really virulent people spending a hell of a lot of money to prevent the rabbis who married me and A. from, well, marrying me and A. This is a church-and-state issue, folks. If you're not in California, you can help by giving money. Our side needs $3 million by Friday night to match the homophobes.
Please, give. Whatever you can. Everything counts.
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8 comments:
And it was a lovely wedding-- I was there! (Hey S., this is your sister. (I owe you a phone call.))
i'm in CA. daughter and i are voting no on 8. there is a good campaign going, and have been contributing to it.
there is no question that my family has been better protected by the fact my beloved and i got married legally. and why shouldn't that be true for everyone? civil rights, baby.
plus, i'm really pissed about trying to repeal a state constitutional right to discriminate against other families.
Hey, Naomi. Welcome!
kathy a., yeah, I'm pretty sure they don't think they'll win this fight long-term. They just want to leave a lot of legislative crap to undo.
Todd Torr just got married to his partner in CA, and asked for us to help the effort as well. So for you, for Todd, and for my sisters-in-law about to get married in CT, my donation is on the way!
My mother-outlaw loves to complain about civil marriage (despite having been civilly married 3 times -- none with a gun to her head)... how it invites the government into your bedroom. She has gone so far as to complain to me and her daughter (my domestic partner legally; my wife as far as I'm concerned) about how we have it so much better, because we don't have governmental interference; we just went to a lawyer and got papers drawn up that simulate many of the rights that are automatically conferred on others when they get married under the law.
Um, yeah, so much better... We had to pay thousands of dollars to make up documents that confer on us most (again, not all) of the privileges that other people get from buying a $30 marriage license. We have to do 2nd-parent adoption and prove to a social worker that we are both fit to be the legal parents of our son. And if I die prematurely (like both my parents did), L. will not be eligible for any of my social security benefits. Yes, way better.
If people think civil marriage sucks, they can totally do what your family did and mine did and go spend lots of money to have contracts drawn up simulating marital rights. But, I would like the option to enter into that automatically and inexpensively, personally.
Thanks for posting about Prop 8. It's so important to get out the word.
Co, my issues with civil marriage fundamentally come down to this: it's still about the bedroom, and it is really hard to undo. I think there are a lot of families that could use the protections of those legal documents that are left out who still wouldn't be covered by same-sex marriage--families headed by a mom and a grandmother, say, or an aunt who's raising her siblings kids without even guardianship papers, and there are a lot of divorces that would be a lot easier on everyone involved if civil marriage were understood to be, say, a contract that had to be explicitly renewed periodically. I would like to see the state develop a much more supple instrument that would give every family protection.
S.,
I agree that making same-sex marriage legal would not protect all alternative families, and that should change. And I see your point about the bedroom.
We can agree to disagree on the other stuff.
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