Just thinking out loud

[sacredchao]

The subject of same sex marriage has been bouncing around a lot lately and it came up in conversation the other night. I had to try to articulate why I didn't agree with someone's position and realised why a civil union is not a reasonable substitute for marriage. It has to do with the nature of marriage.

Ok, so let's look at a couple of things that marriage is NOT. It's not a religious covenant. It exists across a huge and disparate range of religions, so no one faith has a monopoly on its definition and they do differ markedly, including, in some instances, whether it's reasonable for two people of the same sex or gender to marry. It is also entered into regularly in a completely non-religious context. My marriage wasn't religious in any way, nor were the marriages of many other couples I know.

It's also not a legal covenant. De-facto relationships carry many of the legal implications of actual marriage and I can't recall anyone marrying specifically for things like guaranteed access to their partner if they're hospitalised or the security of knowing that their will will be respected, important though those issues are.

It's seriously NOT about making babies. We don't forbid people who are sterile for whatever reason from marrying. Many people who are capable of having children marry with no intention whatsoever of doing so. My parents both remarried and definitely had no intention of ever having more children. We don't dissolve marriages at the onset of menopause or in the event of tubal ligation, hysterectomy or anything else that rules out reproduction. Furthermore, marriage is hardly a prerequisite for having children. The social stigma on having been born out of wedlock in this culture at this time is so slight as to be non-existent. In short, that one's an utter furphy.

So if we don't marry for religious reasons and we don't marry for legal reasons and we don't get married to have babies, why the fuss? Why DO we do it? Marriage, as near as I can tell, is a social covenant. It's how we tell our friends and our family and the wider community that this person is incredibly special to us and that we are prepared to make a significant effort and make a socially binding statement to that effect because it's important. And this means that the criteria for being eligible to marry should be simply the desire to say, in terms that are universally understood, that this person is so SO special that it hurts in that good happy tears way and that we want everyone to know and we want it recognised without having to fumble with vague undefined terms like "partner". We don't want a legally mandated union that assures recognition by the ATO and other government bodies. We want to GET MARRIED with all of the social tinsel and ceremony and deep ingrained meaning which that carries.

It's a statement of love and admiration and commitment and those are not heterosexual emotions or qualities. Those are are human emotions and qualities and to deny that to someone is to declare them as being less than human. We should not and we can not countenance that.

Comments

[hometime.livejournal.com]

Um, we got married for legal reasons. If we weren't married, then JB would have had to live in barracks on the base, and not live with me. While the army do recognise de facto relationships, we wouldn't have been included in that category because he'd been living in Wagga while I was in Melb. And because he would have had to live in barracks in Oakey, then we'd never qualify as de facto.

I have issues with the fact that a disatrous relationship between two people of different genders can count as a marriage, when two people of the same gender can be together for decades, but it doesn't have the same recognition. Surely its the quality of the relationship which should count, not the genital bits?

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Like or hate Seth McFarlane, he did sum it up wonderfully:

"Why is it that Johnny Spaghetti Stain in fucking Georgia can knock a woman up, legally be married to her, and then beat the shit out of her, but [these] two intelligent, sophisticated writers who have been together for 20 years can't get married?"

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

Odd really. stellar_muddle and I got a civil union specifically because we didn't want anything to do with the social tinsel and ceremony.

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

And, in particular, the pointless cost of ceremonies and the expected traditional roles. Of course, this has utterly no bearing on anyone else's desire for exactly the type of wedding and marriage that we specifically avoided.

[sacred-chao.livejournal.com]

So what was the appeal for you two then?

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

Well, at some point while wandering through downtown Canberra (About where that hotel went on fire the other month, but of course years before the actual fire...) I proposed, she evinced the desire to spend the rest of our lives together, but not actually being interested in weddings and similar frippery, so instead when NZ brought in civil unions, we got one of those while back there for a holiday. We informed her parents a couple of hours beforehand (As they were getting on a plane to Norway) and my parents a couple of hours afterwards, and our witnesses ten minutes before. The registrar was really chuffed, he'd never done a civil union before, and the legislation was all new and shiny. Apparently we were straight civil union couple number 35.

We needed/wanted the legal status without spending the money/dealing with the social and relationship implications/baggage of wedding ceremonies. At the time we were not certain whether we would be staying in Aus/NZ, and in particular the legal standing of our NZ civil union was never tested in Oz, which we had thought would have been interesting to watch (I think at the time Australia was not accepting NZ civil unions, but because we are straight, probably would have just treated us as a de-facto couple).

[sacred-chao.livejournal.com]

Hmm, ok, maybe I'm projecting my own experience onto others. Bother. Back to the thinking board.

[stellar-muddle.livejournal.com]

Depends. Beware small sample biases. While basal_surge and I were quite practical (and some might say cheapskate/unromantic), we are in the minority with respect to couples in our acquaintance making formal commitments. Most of the rest have gone with a large(ish) ceremony/gathering in front of friends (whether civil union or wedding). So it did definitely mean something to them.

I think that denying a couple legal/social support/protection/recognition to the degree they want because someone has a religious objection is a bastard/impolite thing to do. And definitely not something a government should be doing.

I probably do have some things to say on the historical perceptions of being a wife cf partner (which I prefer), but I am in the privileged position of being able to make that choice... (and have enough issues with visibility/shadowing)... I am not at my most coherent this late on a week night, so may come back to that/stop rambling now.

Useful to think about though.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Not really - torasin and I bat this ball about quite often. Being gen Y he views marriage and "civil unions" as two very different things. You and I, both being Gen X, view them as the same damned thing, just approached a different way and with a different name. It also helps that emotionally you and I view it the same - it's making a commitment to someone, to taking them as your spouse and setting up your own little family unit (children optional, pets a must :P)

Commitment ceremony, marriage, civil union, civil partnership, defacto - emotionally they all boil down to the same goddamn thing.

And denying that to a slice of the population because HOLY SHIT they like the same sex? That's flat out fucking insane.

Seriously, there's no way whatsoever anyone can justify being against gay marriage. None. Go on, try.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

All the bigotry (and no, I don't think we should pander to them in the slightest. Wake the fuck up, arseholes, this is the 21st century and your shit doesn't fly any more) and social conventions and this and that....

You know what Really hurts my brain?

It's flat out illegal to discriminate against someone for their sexual orientation in Australia. (Australian Human Rights Commission act 1986). Right there. Plain as paper. (There are also per-state Anti-discrimination and Equal Opportunity laws)


AU government: You cannot get married because you are gay.

*HEADASPLODY*



......Someone, please, tell me how we can start charging these fuckers on this.