I was wrong about marriage

[ishai_wallace]

I did not put much time, and even less money into the campaign for equal marriage in Canada. Sure, I wrote a few letters to politicians, and I said publicly "that if the government was going to be in the business of legislating relationships, it should be available to all." but I was not "active" on the issue. I put my time and energy into other,

Comments

[avnerd]

As always, you write beautifully and eloquently about important issues. I'm very much in the camp of "Gay Marriage™ is not my issue" and while I can see the benefits of what marriage can make easier for some, I hate that what it really says is that there is only one way to do things. There is one way to make it easier to bring a partner across the border to be with you, there is one way to get a discount on taxes (why does a couple deserve a break over a single? I really don't get that one), there is one way to be able to have people who are not gay see you as enough like them to tolerate you a little bit more. I worry for the gay youth who might start feeling pressured to 'legitimize' their relationships at very young ages and bring upon themselves more interference from church and state than any generation of queer youth before them. I worry that someday I will want to visit my partner in hospital and will be told that if I had just done things the *right* way (ie: marriage) then things wouldn't be so complicated. I really really worry about this stuff. I feel more cultural allegiance with str8 folks who are refuting marriage than with queers who are embracing it and while that feels very odd it also illuminates how the Goliath that is the institution of marriage is leaving everyone who will not participate in the dust. So I guess what bothers me then is that by participating/supporting/fighting for marriage equality, some queers are leaving other queers behind and I just wish we wouldn't do that.

[ishai_wallace]

Thank you. Thank you for good brain fodder, and a view from a different vantage.

I was and remain very angry about the LGB people, who frankly don't seem very queer to me, who contributed to the marriage equality "fight" and then got married and went home. I agree with a great deal of what you said - I continue to believe that the state should not be in the marriage business at all. I'm very committed to the idea that marriage (or the longevity of a relationship should not be a measure of success). I remain ambivalent towards legal marriage, even as I enjoy the priviledges it confers. The important marriage part to me was the religious part, and the act of inviting G-d into our relationship in a formal way, and asking for the blessings of friends and family really mattered. But I'm also not above taking advantage of legal marriage. It felt really perverse that If I had sponsored my partner as common law, we both would have needed to swear we were monogamous, and as a married couple we do not. Getting married meant we did not have to lie - which is not just, but when we debated a court challenge, and the emotional, physical, employment and other costs of it, we decided the costs were too great to challenge it alone.

And on the tax breaks - I would rather see tax breaks to caregivers, I assume it was originally about providing supports to couples raising children, but it is certainly not how that goes now.

I do think though that equal marriage is changing the way some people (including LGBTT2IQQA) people see us and that that change is positive. The hospital scenario you describe scares me greatly, and is one I would fight vigorously against. We need lovers and community and a recognition outside of coupledom.

I'd love to have this conversation in person - I think the discussion would be rich.