LGBTQ 30 Day Challenge: Day 21

Day 21:Political LGBT issue that is closest to you and affects you the most?

I'd have to say marriage equality and adoption are both equally important to me and I think in many way, they go hand in hand.  Not that all LGBT people that want the right to marry also want to have kids, but I think there are many of them do. 

Marriage says to your neighborhood, your city, your county, your state, your country, your world, that you are committed to someone through thick and thin.  It doesn't matter about gender, it's about love. Just this past couple weeks while I was home with my mother, I made the comment that I wanted to get married and and have kids, and she was floored.  She asked me how I intended to do this and I said, "adoption, surrogacy, there are a lot of options." Then she asked about the marriage and asked, "So, are you just not going to love her?" I was caught off guard this time.  It took a second for me to process and then I realized her thought process.  When I told her I intended to marry a man, she said, "that isn't legal." I'm so often surrounded by supportive friends and co-workers, especially in a university setting, that I forget so many people still feel this way.  That is way marriage rights are so important to LGBT people.  Just like not all straight people have to get married, neither do all LGBT's, but we should have the right to.  We tried separate but equal in the 50's and 60's.  It didn't work.  I don't understand why that is so hard for people to understand or accept.  But I fully believe I will have the right to marry the man I love, gods willing we find each other, in any of the 50 states in this country before I die.  But if I don't, as I told my mother, "I don't give a fuck what the state says is legal."  You can't deny true love.

LGBTQ 30 Day Challenge: Day 10

Day 10: What does marriage mean to you?

As cheesy as it sounds, to me, marriage means love. It means that I have committed my life to someone and intend to be with them forever. Through thick and thin, good and bad, richer or poorer. I have no illusion that there aren't ups and downs or that marriage magically changes a person, but it's s symbol. It's a symbol to each other, to the community, the state, the nation, and the universe that these 2 souls are truly committed to each other.

Do I think that everyone has to or should get married? No, of course not. Some people aren't meant to be monogamous or in that kind of commitment. But should everyone have the right ot get married? Absolutely. And as far as that goes, if more than 2 people want to get married, they should have that right (more thoughts on that here).

Marriage is a societal institution. In some cases, it is a religious institution. But not only religious straight people get married. There is no differentiation in terminology for atheist couples. And the second the government handed out the first marriage "license," it ceased being a purely religious practice. Hell, in most of modern society, it was more of a business transaction or a peace agreement than about love. It wasn't until the 1940's and 1950's in the West that it truly became about love. So, the idea we have of marriage really isn't all that old.

And each generation defines what marriage is. People like to argue that it is an ancient institution, but it wasn't until about 1970 that people of different races could marry each other. And now we see how ridiculous that prohibition was. I full believe in 50 years, children will be confused as to what all the argument was about.