on marriage, hetero-privilege and solidarity

[exterra]

d and i have been talking, over the last year or so, of our desire to have a ceremony in celebration of our relationship and committment to each other. as a queer and feminist woman, i have many critiques of the institution of marriage. however; one aspect of marriage that i do embrace is the social and public ritual of recognizing a relationship

Comments

[capsicumanuum]

OH man, I hear you there. M and I were originally planning on having a religious ceremony and nothing else, for many of the same reasons. Like you, having a public ceremony to acknowledge our commitment to one another was important, and for us, it was important to do it in our church. Unfortunately, our church won't provide a blessing or commitment ceremony to opposite-sex couples who are not legally married (and technically it's not allowable to do so for same-sex couples, but most of our priests go ahead and bless same-sex civil unions anyway). There are some reasonably good theological reasons for requiring a legally binding commitment as well as the morally/spiritually binding one, but it still made me unhappy.

Well, we struggled with the decision long enough that our state legalized full same-sex marriage. I still feel like it is morally questionable to, as you put it, "cash in" on this form of privilege, since I work in Virginia, which has some kind of super-DOMA law, but I consider myself to be "from" Cambridge, and plan to return there as soon as I can. I'm assuaging my conscience by making a donation to MassEquality and Lambda Legal from the wedding gift money we receive, but I'm well aware that it is, at best, a compromise.

[capsicumanuum]

Oh, and the age 62 thing is so that older couples can get the hospital visitation/health care proxy/tax benefits without losing widow/widower Social Security or pension benefits.