The institutions of Marriage and Family were already well established when
the first tribal leaders were chosen, when the first persons saw visions of God
(or of the devil) and told others about it, and when the first written languages
were invented.
Marriage is not dependent on governments or mainstream churches for validation.
Because, in spite of what else marriage may have become, it has always been the
right of free and responsible individuals to create Family where none existed
before.
Marriage commitments happen every day with only their own mutual approval to
validate their existence. These marriages were once acknowledged in law as
Common Law Marriages. But fearing that gays would use these laws as the basis of
claiming legal marriage status most states have rewritten their law to exclude
us, or have done away with these laws altogether.
Conservative straights consider our families to be fake, and they would like us
to think of them like that too. But they cannot seem to live with the fact that
we can voluntarily create loving and supportive families when they need the
dictatorship of the law, governments, and mainstream churches to keep their
families together.
Marriage is our Right! And we need to stop characterizing our marriage
relationships in other terms! Tell others you are Married if you consider
yourself to be. We don't need Democrats pandering to us in public then working
against us behind the scenes. We don't need the Republican Liberty Caucus and
other middle-of-the-road politicians trying to sell us on a fake form of
marriage. We already have the Right to Marry, but we must claim it.
The Metropolitan Community Church is a prime example of a church that swims
against the current by cheerfully offering a marriage ceremony to everyone,
including gays and even straights excluded from ceremonies in other churches.
They call them Holy Unions instead of Marriages, but for over 35 years they have
consistently promoted long-term, responsible, marriage relationships in the
gay/queer community.
And even now MCC continues to lead the way toward getting the government to stop
discriminating against us. MCC's founder, Rev. Troy Perry, started something new
this year that he hopes will hasten the time when the US government will
recognize gay marriages. He is encouraging gay/queer couples to flood marriage
license offices around the country on Valentines Day every year requesting
marriage licenses.
Facts to keep in mind: We already have the right to marry even if no one else
acknowledges it. There is value in the fact that so many gay and lesbian
marriages have succeeded without a license and without the perks that legal
marriage gives to straights. And finally, the fact of not having marriage as a
legal option is undeniably a part of what is now rightfully called Gay (or
Queer) Culture.
In other words, if gay marriage were legalized tomorrow I believe a surprisingly
low percentage of gays and lesbians would actually take advantage of it.
However, the legalization movement has merit and is worthy of support because it
will make legal marriage available to those who want it.
I believe, as does the Libertarian Party, that the perfect solution would be for
the government to get out of marriage completely, no licensing, no special legal
privileges. But that won't happen until Libertarians are elected in much larger
numbers.
Democrats say they want to equalize access to legal marriage for all. But that
won't happen until their actions start matching their rhetoric.
Conservative Republicans want to make marriage illegal for everyone but
themselves. But their dominance over marriage will not last much longer.
It is more likely that the politics of compromise will succeed in bastardizing
some middle-ground marriage legalization, like Domestic Union. It will not
contain the word "marriage", it will not contain all the legal perks available
to straights, and it will satisfy no one.
One thing is clear, government needs to apply the marriage laws equally or
abolish those laws. Because the institutions of marriage and family are actually
made stronger in an environment of freedom where each marriage or family decides
for themselves the parameters of their relationships.
September 16th, 1979 was the day Roland and I made our first commitment to each
other, so it is the day each year we celebrated as our anniversary. My parents
had already accepted my being gay and always treated Roland like a son-in-law.
But openly they called him their "adopted son" to give some explanation for the
closeness of our relationship without admitting the truth. Faithfully every year
as our anniversary approached, I would remind my parents of the impending event.
But nothing was ever said or done on or around that date: no "Happy
Anniversary", no card, no nothing. So, after several years of hoping that they
would come around, I stopped celebrating or even acknowledging their
anniversary. It wasn't until a couple of years after Roland's death, more than
17 years after that September day, that my Mother asked me why I never
acknowledged their anniversary. I told her calmly, "Because you never
acknowledged ours."
Those who would "defend marriage" and "the family" by legally restricting other
people's right to marry and form their own families actually damage the very
things they seek to protect. As they tighten their grip, more and more people
slip through their fingers, or rather, escape through them.
Only by claiming our relationships as marriages, loudly and insistently, as Rev.
Perry of MCC advocates, can we truly educate the public to the problems they
cause us by disallowing our marriages.
If you and your spouse (or spouses, for that matter) have made marriage-like
commitments to each other, if you have exchanged vows, or if you are in a "tried
and true" relationship; I challenge you to call it what it is. Defy all those
who would deny you your right, claim it, until society recognizes your
relationship for what it is -- Marriage. Not some fake shadow of marriage; but a
Real, Honest-to-God MARRIAGE.