Editor's Note: Welcome new readers! If you like this post sign up for RD's daily email newsletter here.
---
I no longer recognize marriage. It’s a new thing I’m trying.
Turns out it’s fun.
Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend.
She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,”
“Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.”
The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,
“How’s your longtime companion, Jill?”
“She’s my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.”
Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs.
Just replace the words husband, wife, spouse, or fiancé with boyfriend, girlfriend, special friend, or longtime companion. There is a reason we needed stronger words for more serious relationships. We know it; now they can see it.
A marriage is a lot of things. Culturally, it’s a declaration to the community that two people are now a unit, and that unity should be respected. Legally, it’s a set of rights and responsibilities. And spiritually, it’s whatever your beliefs think it is.
That’s what’s so great about America. As a Constitutionally secular nation, or at least in reality a vaguely pluralistic nation, we can all have our own spiritual take on what marriage is. What’s troublesome is when one group’s spiritual beliefs deny the cultural and legal rights of another.
But, back to the point. They say their beliefs don’t recognize my marriage, I say my beliefs don’t recognize theirs. Simple. It may seem petty, and obviously the legal part of the cultural/legal/spiritual trilogy is flip-floppy, but it may be the cultural part that really matters.
People get married to be recognized as a permanent couple. To be acknowledged by friends, family, and strangers as being off the market, in a relationship, totally hooked up, yikes… it’s impossible to say without saying ‘married.’ We wear rings to declare this!
So, we can take this away. We can refuse to recognize marriage in the cultural sense. It is totally within our rights, as Americans, to follow our beliefs and recognize or not recognize what we like.
I guess this is a call out to all Americans with beliefs similar to mine.
If you believe that all people should have equal rights, and if you believe that marriage is one of the greatest destinations of a relationship, then perhaps you believe that nobody should have marriage until everybody does.
That’s what I believe.
---
Related story on Prop 8: Don't Blame Black Voters: The Obama Non-Effect.
Tags: gay marriage, lgbt
This is great. Unfortunately, here in Seattle that's pretty much what folks do anyway. It's almost passe to call your husband or wife, if you're in a hetero marriage, "husband" or "wife" instead of partner. I'll have to travel out of my little bubble...
I'm not gay or married and I think this is a good idea. I'll definitely be doing this whenever I have to refer to marriages now.
My message to the people who desperately want to be married: If you HAVE to marry the person you love most, there are insecurities you have and will never give yourself the chance to work out. Have some pride and confidence in yourself -- dont get married!!!
To tell people not to get married is not going to solve the problem because on a social level if people stop marrying then it only fuels the right wing religious movement by giving them the excuse that if hetero left couples don't marry then why should same sex couples need to. From a legal perspective marriage allows for more tax options. For people to access these incentives they at least have to be registerd as common law so to say people who marry have no pride or are insecure is almost as closeminded as saying homosexuals shouldn't marry. If marriage isn't for you fine but people shouldn't deny themselves something they may find fulfilling whether on a personal, spiritual or religious level simply because it's what the religious right does.
This reminds me of when Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt said that they wouldn't marry until everyone else could...
Very, very good. I'll do that too =)
What a very peaceful, yet passive/aggressive way to address this disparity. I think you are absolutely brilliant, and can imagine that you see a lot of mouths opening, then closing, then opening, then closing, with no words coming out of them.
I am not gay, and I am twice divorced. Despite the two divorces, I am still Catholic, and I believe strongly in the sanctity of marriage. (If only I could find a man that believes in it also.)
Committed gay relationships are relatively new to the general public. Historically the gay community has been portrayed as a naughty singles club It will take Mom and Pop a while to adjust to the thought of Joe and Bob or Sarah and Lisa being parents or their next door neighbors.
I am not saying that it is right, and I am not saying that change shouldn't have come long before now. We all know that change happens slowly. Blacks were held as slaves by us 140 years ago and that is only a few generations ago. Women have only been allowed to vote since 1920. That is less than 90 years ago. Not a heck of a long time.
So hope for change, and work for change, and fight tooth and nail for change, but use temperance and try to accept that people change slowly. Forcing something down someones throat is not going to make them accept it. They will keep coughing it back up like California did in this election.
Good luck to you. I can't wait to call my closed-minded friend's wife, his "significant other" and watch him sputter. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!
that's pretty much been my take on it. i haven't actually said that to anyone, but most everyone i converse with believes in equal rights for everyone.
as a straight, single grandmother who's been living with the same guy for 17 years and will never, ever marry (i did it once, not going to go there again), nothing about Prop 8 affects me personally in any way - except that it offends me to the core that we all do not share the same civil - no make that human rights. and that it's not just a few stray assholes, it's *the majority* that thinks it's ok to revoke people's rights based solely on their status as a member of a minority.
someday we'll all look back on this with the same kind of wtf we now look back on the whole, separate drinking fountains thing. separate is inherently unequal.
brilliant post, thanks.
What about "partner"? It's used almost universally here in the UK - no "boy", "girl", "husband", or "wife" about it. When I moved here using "partner" was akin to outing yourself. Is that still true?
I am alright with your refusal to recognize my "marriage" based on my refusal to recognize yours. Agree to disagree I suppose. I have homosexual friends who know my views on their lifestyle, and I know their views on mine. There isn't any animosity, and I mean none here. I am not an evil or intolerant person for feeling like I do. It is an ideology that I have come to believe on my own. I will respect your desire for marriage, but will not sacrifice my beliefs. I will not begrudge any persons in love their right to a union.
I put it in comic form. It's definitely an idea worth spreading. :-)
http://www.sudux.com/notcathy3web.jpg
Is now a part of the post. It's excellent!
Fun, but personal relationships aren't the context in which this comes up for me so much.
It's so ironic to me that rightwingers are frothing about the "homosexual agenda" to destroy marriage when their own refusal to share it is what will ultimately lead to it being taken away from everyone. Why bother with the subtleties of scriptural ethics when the issue's no more complex than gay cooties in Kindergarten 101?
Nevermind the amazing amounts of money it will take to rewrite all the forms. Nevermind the state of the economy. Mebbe the next Spong book can be Why America Must Change or Starve in Our Ghettos.
At 1:35am the day before Thanks-frickin-giving, I wish I could buy a day without anger over this. All I can buy are prescription drugs. At least they're legal.
Simply brilliant!
Love the idea.
For part two, stop recognizing their divorces.
Love this! I have my "SO" signed up, plus several kids ;-) There is a new facebook group, "I no longer recognize marriage."!
But should one recognize marriages from MA and CT? It's an interesting idea...
Just because the state doesn't recognize you as married doesn't mean you, your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. can't. I say, outside of certain legal situations, just say you're married if you consider yourself married. Stand up and stay proud!
A step further would be since some churches were performing gay weddings and recognizing same sex marriages, see if you can get them to continue to do so. Use separation of church and state on your side. The more you erode away the opposition and the more society "gets used to it", the closer we are to full civil rights.
Rather than saying you don't recognize marriage, try "I only recognize same-sex marriages", and insist on calling your spouse what he or she is, regardless of whether or not your marital union is provided legal or religious sanction, instead of acquiescing to the demand that we call ourselves 'partner', etc.
Anyone who says they aren't hateful or bigoted, and then uses their personally-held beliefs as an excuse to vote against the legal recognition of someone else's marriage simply because it doesn't conform to those beliefs needs to have another look in the mirror. Such an act is very much an attempt to force one's beliefs into the lives of others and an expression of one's hateful bigotry. Just because you don't recognize yourself as a hateful bigot, that doesn't mean you aren't one. You may not be the type who makes a point of loudly proclaiming it in a bullying manner, but that doesn't make your position any less heinous, unreasonable, unjustifiable, insulting, etc. etc. etc.
Standing up for ourselves and our marriages can hardly be honestly characterized as forcing our beliefs on someone else. We aren't saying everyone else should have to be in a same-sex relationship to be married - only that we want equal recognition for our own marriages. But maybe it's time to retaliate at the cultural level and at least stop giving our verbal recognition to heterosexual marriages as a way of making the point.
Comments closed
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.