As everyone close to me already knows, I take the institution of marriage very seriously. I've known for a long time that the "piece of paper" was something that I needed to feel fully invested in a committed relationship. The act of declaring our promises and commitment to one another and our life together before our families and friends, as well as the legally binding nature of those promises, was the foundation upon which I wanted to build my family and partnership. This belief in the importance of marriage in a relationship and family and an understanding of how personal an issue it is, is one of the reasons that I continue to be outraged that the institution continues to be denied to same-sex couples in a nation which proclaims to separate church and state and in which I, in theory, am free to practice any religion (or none at all) as I see fit.
While I've been frustrated by the blatant discrimination and civil rights issues surrounding gay marriage for some time, several things have brought it to the forefront of my mind recently, though today I will restrain myself and discuss only one.
After Justin and I celebrated our wedding surrounded by our closest family and friends (the single most important day of my life thus far!), it turned out that the State of Virginia did not recognize our officiant as she lacked a "letter of good standing from her church." While an inconvenience, Justin and I decided to just go ahead and "make it official" at the magistrate's office in our local courthouse here in Durham, NC. So after getting a new license and paying our $20, we gathered two friends and sat in the waiting room of the magistrate's office for two hours while we waited for him to get through the room full of landlord-tenant dispute parties.
Once we were called into his office, we were met by an office so overrun by small claims paperwork that he finally had to ask a co-worker for a copy of the "vows." While he searched, he joked around and told us stories about how, every single week, he receives calls on Monday by people that he married on Friday asking how they could "undo" the marriage. Once he got a copy of the vows, he ran through them, everyone signed, and after a total of ten minutes (8 of which were spent looking for the vows), we were legally married.
There was no discussion of what marriage meant, how long we'd known each other, or whether we'd thought through what we were entering into. We paid our cash, had two witnesses, and were of age. That was it. Oh- and, of course, that we were of the "proper" genders.
Sanctity of marriage. What does
that mean? While I will never argue that faith-based institutions should be forced to recognize any sort of human interaction, my expectations of the state are very different. I maintain that the process that Justin & I went through in that magistrate's office was purely a legal contract into which we entered in order to enjoy the legal rights that accompany marriage. There was no requirement that we say our vows before family, friends, or God. There was no requirement that we be responsible or caring human beings or partners. Only that we pay the cash, have two witnesses, be of age (a step that you can skip if you have parents willing to sign a slip of paper), and be of different genders. I assure you that I felt no "sanctity" due to what passed in that crowded office.
The entire experience brought to life what I already knew to be true: that those opposing gay marriage are not at all concerned about the actual sanctity of the
institution of marriage (I certainly haven't heard any fuss made about the fact that two sixteen year-olds can marry or that the mental competency required to enter into marriage is less than that required to enter into any other contractual agreement), but rather have found a comfortable battle cry to justify the blatant discrimination and repression of the rights of a large and contributing section of our citizenry. It wasn't so long ago that abusers of religion justified slavery, Jim Crow, the subjugtion of women, marital rape, and a ban on interracial marriage by waving their bibles and citing the "unnatural" while conveniently neglecting all teachings of love, acceptance, tolerance and non-judgment.
I live in a nation founded on the principles of equality and justice. More than 200 years later, we are still struggling to live up to the ideals that our founding fathers intended (my belief, but as products of the Enlightenment Age, I think that you would be hard put to argue that they believed that religion should play a large role in policies of the state).
Okay...hopping off my soapbox now! I will leave you with one last image from our "day in court."
Addendum: After I posted this, I received a call that makes me feel compelled to comment. I do not associate religion with hate, nor am I anti- religious or anti-Christian. I truly believe that all people have the absolute right to their beliefs, whether those beliefs fit the tenets of modern religion or atheism or apathy. I also believe in, and deeply love, our Constitution and the rights that it asserts on behalf of the people of this nation. When I used the phrase "abusers of religion" I meant exactly that- I was referring to those people who choose to use their personal interpretation of God to subjugate those that do not fit within the realm of that interpretation. I know many people of great and powerful faith who choose love and tolerance rather than judgment and denial. And at the end of the day, I do not feel that legal and contractual rights should be denied to people to whom they would not otherwise be denied based solely on an outside moral judgment about the gender of the person that an individual chooses to love and share their life with. Is that a little clearer?
