And with this entry on same-sex marriage … I’m done talking about gay marriage for a while. I’m starting to be like that guy everyone avoids at parties — the one who, like a broken record, returns again and again to his topic du jour, boring everyone silly.
A quick summary, for the archives’ sake:
1) Most of the gay people who claim to be married believe that doing so is part of a reform movement. They “feel” married, or believe themselves to be married “in the eyes of God.” They feel that claiming marriage is an important first step in the battle for equal rights: “We are married, whether the state recognizes it or not.” They believe such claims will ultimately influence the state to acknowledge their claims.
2) I assert that the well-intentioned (but misguided) claims to marriage utlimately confuse the issue and delay formal, legal recognition of marriage for same-sex couples. Before the battle even begins, “marriage pretenders” blur the issues by leading others to believe that we have access to legal marriage in America. Claiming marriage confuses liberal heterosexual allies, people whose open hearts and minds might lead them to work on our behalf.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement, as they campaigned for a woman’s right to vote, never claimed, “We do have the right to vote. We already have the right to vote, in God’s eyes.” They did not hold their own (unsanctioned) elections and publish the results, then claim to have voted. Instead, they drew everyone’s attention to their second-class citizenship, until the egregiousness of the situation became undeniable.
The core of every successful rights-acquisition movement in history depended on members pointing out, loudly and often, that they were being denied a basic human right.
Whether gay people can acquire the right to marry by engaging in mass delusion and misleading others remains to be seen.
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