Marriage--straight, gay, and otherwise

[muckefuck]

So I could write some catty things here about last weekend's family wedding, such as the fact that the self-composed vows inevitably brought to mind Lore's feature on the late Brunching Shuttlecocks or that they completely omitted any mention or acknowledgement of the bride's stepfather (despite impassioned assurances to me from one of the bride's intimates on his importance in her life). But I've come to the belated recognition that, since I have no intention of ever getting married and cannot, to my everlasting shame, master such absolute basics of wedding etiquette such as getting response cards and gifts to the couple in a timely fashion (if at all), my room to criticise is extremely limited indeed.

Until recently, there wasn't even any expectation that I might ever get married and, to tell the truth, I kind of miss the old days. My feelings about same-sex marriage (as I prefer to term it, since "gay marriage" implies that gays have never married before--plenty have, just not to other gays of the same sex--and that bisexuals only marry opposite sex partners, while "marriage equality" dilutes the issue to the point of obscurity--aren't polygamists seeking recognition of the "equality" of their unions as well?) can best be described as mixed. That's not surprising, since my attitude to marriage in general is mixed--as you might expect for someone coming from what is quaintly termed a "broken home".

I'm more bullish on it than anti-marriage advocates like androkles who view it as something akin to a legal prison because I simply know too many people for whom it works extremely well. For many others, though, it's clearly a less-than-ideal arrangement. I think this is a consequence of it being something of a one-size-fits-all solution to a very complicated question. I'd always thought that queerfolk, being largely stranded outside of the traditional institution by societal norms, were in a unique position to come up with innovative and progressive alternatives and now I worry that too much energy is going into extending the existing institution to them without sufficiently altering it first.

Of course, it's just these sort of alterations that most terrrify already married folk. I think lhn has done a fantastic job of presenting how their defensiveness is motivated by fear of change rather than homophobia and it would behoove more activists to familiarise themselves with this mindset, since, as he points out, calling your opponents "bigots" is not exactly a winning strategy when it comes to making friends and influencing policy. For those who find themselves despairing in the face of so much resistance, longtime activist topaz_munro sees victory in the face of defeat.

Comments

[zompist.livejournal.com]

It may be scant comfort, but I'd suggest that some of the referendum results, e.g. 57% in Oregon, are strategic defeats for the anti-gay side. If you're electing a president, that's a landslide; but if you're trying to preserve a cultural more, it's a loss-- it means that the more in question has stopped being a cultural universal and is now part of mere politics.

I very much agree with what you say about one-size-fits-all. Marriage works fine for me (and it should be available to anyone who wants it), but I don't think it works for the majority of people.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I guess, depending on where you live, they are now available in three sizes: Regular, Lite (i.e. civil unions), and Extra Strength (covenant marriage). Three choices still seems like far to few to embrace the panoply of relationships out there.

[zompist.livejournal.com]

Extra Strength, heh heh. I have a suspicion that in twenty years we're going to get a crop of hair-wrenching novels or exposés or lawsuits about covenant marriages, from either the survivors or their children.

[lifeandstuff.livejournal.com]

My personal stance has been and likely always will be, if straights have to put up with putting on a wedding, gays should to. I don't know why gays should get off easy.

If you need help on surviving the longer, slower, and more painful than it should be, process for getting through deciding which wedding invitations should be sent out, I'll be there for ya, though. Don't say I'm not supportive in a misery loves company sort of way. :)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

There's a lot to be said for elopement. (Don't say you never thought of it!) Who needs all those useless fancy gifts anyhow?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

That's a great option-- for people who won't pay for the rest of their lives for blowing off their families that way. :-)

(And whose families won't just route around the difficulty. My mom explained that if for some reason we chose to have a small wedding, she'd just have to have a post-wedding reception for us comparable in size to our wedding. Probably larger, in fact, since while a remarkably large fraction of her acquaintanceship travelled for our wedding, I be more would have come if she'd done it locally. Or we could simply have flat out refused; after all, it's not as if Jewish moms have legendary guilt powers or anything.)

In the event, we had a great time at our wedding anyway, so in retrospect neither of us regrets it. In retrospect. :-)