Friday, June 26, 2015

On Marriage

I was never really into marriage. Oh, I think weddings are a blast and it would be fun to have a big party with all my friends and family to celebrate and honor my love for another person. But I've never fantasized about what I would wear, or what it would be like, or what it meant. And I don't have a fully articulated opinion of the institution of marriage. A boyfriend once asked what I thought about marriage, and all I could say was, "Well, Wendell Berry says some interesting things about it in this book I recently read…" And he does, about marriage being a social institution, about it being not just between two people but between them and their community. Berry writes from the perspective of a heterosexual marriage, but what he says applies to all marriages. Today's Supreme Court decision is all the more powerful understanding marriage in this context - that communities must recognize homosexual relationships as social institutions that can serve to strengthen society. (Berry recognizes the destructiveness of his white, heterosexual, male, Christian privilege, on himself, others, and the world, but he has been silent on homosexuality, something that has frustrated me. But anyway, that's a side note.) I never really thought seriously enough about marriage, and its relevancy to my own life, to decide what I thought about it.

When this gay marriage fight began, I took a moderate stance. If the church wanted to claim providence over marriage, then I figured we could compromise and let "marriage," in whatever form, be the domain of the church, while limiting the state to issuing civil unions, to heterosexual and homosexual couples alike. If states went for gay marriage, that was great and I thought highly of their people and their politics, but I wasn't an advocate for it. The Defense of Marriage Act irked me, and made me dislike Bill Clinton, not just because I thought it was a piece of intolerant legislation but because I thought it violated the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution. As for states that responded to the "threat" of gay marriage by explicitly limiting marriage to between a man and a woman, that made me livid, but I eventually realized they were digging their own graves on that issue.

But still, was marriage for me? I didn't know, and didn't think I cared. An older gay friend of mine once said, "I thought being gay meant you didn't have to get married!" Not that many months ago, a co-worker casually asked if I thought I would marry the girl I was dating. "I couldn't here, if I wanted to," I responded, not so much angry with the questionable legal status of gay marriage in Arkansas at the time as I was relieved that I didn't have to actually answer the question. In general, I think my generation sees marriage a little differently than those before us. Although my parents are still married, as are the parents of very many of my close friends, we live in a world where half of all marriages fail. At 29, a surprising number of my friends are already divorced!  Marriage certainly has its benefits, but that doesn't mean that it is the right choice for a relationship. Long-lasting gay relationships are a perfect example of making things work without marriage. But just because marriage isn't necessary, per se, doesn't mean that it isn't a right, and I'm crying tears of joy in celebration of this day.

If I was born ten years later than I was, I would have explored and come to know my sexuality in a whole different world, one in which I imagine I would have been able to see myself more clearly, simply because the extension of marriage makes homosexual relationships more visible. Sure there was Will & Grace, and The L Word, but none of those stories resonated with my story. While something will be lost in moving away from the margins, the mainstreaming of homosexuality is a good thing for America. For those out there concerned about the "gay agenda," here it is: We want your children to grow up in a world where they can be their true honest selves, where they can love who they want to love without having to worry about sacrificing the rest of their lives to do so, and where they don't suffer the psychological repercussions of denial, shame, and ostracism.

I remember when gay marriage became legal in New Hampshire. At the time, the only person I could imagine marrying, if I had one of those pacts where if you are both still single when you're 35 you get married, was my closest female friend. And suddenly that was an actual possibility. We never made such a pact - it was a pretty gay idea, in retrospect - but that such a thing was possible! Doors were opening. Liberation was coming. The world was changing.

And now, here we are, a blink of the eye later, and the Supreme Court has declared gay marriage the law of the land! I shared an article on Facebook that reminds us that the struggle continues, that we must remember the margins. The margins are constantly changing, and we must keep learning from and leading from them. To quote my haggadah, which I seem to like to do here:
The struggle for freedom is a continuous struggle,
For never does man reach total liberty and opportunity.
In every age, some new freedom is won and established,
Adding to the advancement of human happiness and security.
Yet, each age uncovers a formerly unrecognized servitude,
Requiring new liberation to set man's soul free.
In every age, the concept of freedom grows broader,
Widening the horizons for finer and nobler living.
Each generation is duty-bound to contribute to this growth,
Else mankind's ideals become stagnant and stationary.

There are days when I struggle to believe that "the arc of the universe…bends towards justice," but on days like today, I have hope. The legalization of gay marriage in no way means that homophobia is dead and equality is the law of the land. The legalization of interracial marriage didn't mean the end of racism, nor did the election of a black president. But these are still victories. Victories that allow us to advance to the next and greater battle. Victories that need to be celebrated to sustain us for the continued fight.  I celebrated by putting a rainbow bow tie on my puppy, cuddling with him in the hammock, and then coming inside to eat ice cream and write this essay and feel brave enough to share it with the world. We had three inches of rain last night, and today I'm seeing rainbows everywhere.