Meh.
I think we manage to pass that particular baton back and forth a good deal. Humiliation loves company, perhaps?
He knows my grandmother well and I’ve met him a few times while visiting with her in Columbia. I live for the day when he comes out of the closet.
When the kids in my (New York City) preschool class would ask “Miss Xoferew, can a boy marry a boy? Can a girl marry a girl?” I used to say, “It depends where you live. Different places have different rules.” Now I think I’ll just say “Yes.”
(No, you still can’t marry your mommy, though!)
I have an acquaintance who’s a church organist. He won’t play for weddings until SSM is legal in this state. (At first he said “all the states,” then realized it mean he’d never play for any weddings, ever.)
No effect at all. I know only one gay, AFAIK, and he has been a stable relationship for at least 25 years. They could have been married here in Quèbec for at least the last five years, but have chosen not to. On the other hand, half of all opposite sex couples (including an 82 yo colleague of mine) are not married, so why should gays be any different. (It is a matter of public record that less than 50% of all babies born here are to married couples.)
I’m not affected by it at all, and can’t imagine being affected by it. Any reasonable straight person should easily see that it makes no difference in their lives, but the religious types have been so heavily propagandizing against gay marriage that many straight people think dreadful things will happen if gay marriage is legalized. I have had several straight relatives turn entirely against gay marriage based entirely on religious propaganda, gayness has been entirely absent in their lives, for the most part. Talking to them about it is like talking to a brick wall. I can’t stress this enough: your enemy is in the pulpits, they are doing their level best to make SSM illegal. If it were not for all the preists, clerics, etc., there would be no widespread opposition to gay marriage.
The one that comes to mind: it got Mom and a bunch of other classmate-moms to realize that this dude they’d always liked so much because he was so considerate and always so well-put-together was also gayer than a rainbow-colored feathered boa at the San Francisco Pride Parade. “DidyouhearyouroldclassmateOzziegotmarriedtoaman?” “Oh, that’s nice!” “NICE?” “Well, it’s not like his batting for the other team is exactly news for anybody who went to class with him, Mom…”
Funny thing is, I do believe it’s what stopped her trying to push the sons and nephews of her friends on me. Mind you, there was a period when she also tried it with daughters, in case that happened to be what the problem was - she wants grandchildren from me so badly, I think she wouldn’t mind if I got them from the sperm bank and unpartnered so long as I got them.
The lack of legal gay marriage in California has affected me a bit. I want to get married, in fact I have a wedding date scheduled for 11-11-11. I’m a girl, my partner is a guy, shouldn’t be any problem right? It’s a problem for me morally though. I feel like marriage in this state is somehow sullied. It’s dirty and religious and conservative, and that’s not want I want my marriage to be. I thought about having a domestic partnership instead, but California law doesn’t allow it between young opposite gender folks.
I’ve talked to my officiant about it. He’s a gay Buddhist monk, and he says that marriage is available to me, and I should enjoy the privilege and continue working as I already to to fight for marriage equality. I’ll definitely be incorporating my views on the subject into the ceremony, and probably do something financial, like hold a money-dance and state that all the proceeds go to the HRC, or a like organization.
Still feel guilty though, like I’m selling out perhaps.
I hear ya.
Thanks for all the responses—this is enlightening and a little surprising. I’m pleased that the response is overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive, but given the intensity of the rhetoric I thought there’d be more stories of dramatic denial of benefits or maybe some window into why it’s so important to exclude gays from legal marriage. So far, all I see is “a lot of people confuse legal marriage with holy matrimony.”
I don’t know what to think. This has dominated my life for the last 8 years, since my own UK visa expired. Most people never have to face “your country or your spouse,” but I kind of wish I could wander around the evangelical churches and force people to choose. I can tell you that no matter what, your relationship with both suffers for your having made it. (We are doing fine, it’s just been so much harder than I could ever have anticipated. And of course things are getting better all the time: lots of states and countries are offering benefits that weren’t even dreamed of when I was growing up.)
That is also the biggest problem. While it is nice that NY and other states are allowing Gay marriage or at least Domestic Partners/Unions, it doesn’t really offer full equality. I know that, for instance, in Germany they let same sex marriages have full rights with regards to immigration, child custody and social security benefits.
If either I or my SO should die, the other would most likely have to immediately sell the house - we are not eligible for any pension or social security benefits that would allow one of us to keep up with all of the expenses on one income. If Mr. Jones dies, his wife gets a good chunk of his benefits to keep her going and maybe at least afford to live out her life in their home.
Until there is a FEDERAL law allowing all the full benefits, the changes currently being made state-by-state are a symbolic step in the right direction, but hardly full equality.
I did like a joke some comedian said, “if Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes and Liza Minnelli can all legally marry Gay men, why can’t I?”
Amen. I spend a lot of time giving civics lessons. “Why couldn’t you just get married in Vermont?” “Because immigration is a FEDERAL matter.” But here in Canada we do have full equality, incuding adoption and protection from discrimination in the workplace. I hope America follows; I think it will eventually.
At the moment, not at all. The only gay with whom I’m on a first-name basis is a self-proclaimed total slut and prefers drunken three-ways to monogamous relationships. If and when he ever settles down, I probably won’t even get invited to the wedding. We’re not that close.
Please tell your minister that some stranger on the internet both admires and appreciates his or her refusal.
I’m straight. It’s been legal up here in Canada for some time. I don’t get what all the fuss is about.
Our country didn’t socially collapse when it became legal up here. If two people love each other why shouldn’t they have the same rights and benefits as straight couples.
In the years that we’ve had same-sex marriage here in Canada, I have been affected in the following ways:
- Two dudes I know got married within days of the legislation being passed.
- I overheard a guy in the waiting room at an audition chatting with someone about how he and his now-husband moved to Canada to get married.
- Hi, Opal!
Personally and directly, not much (I’m straight). But I have a lot of gay friends (I’m in a LGBT WoW guild as well as having several gay and lesbian real-life friends), and I’m very happy that those among them who want to marry are able to.
The spouse, who’s more religious than I am (that’s not hard, since I’m not religious), is all hung up on the word “marriage.” He has no objections to gay couples getting every right, privilege, and responsibility that hetero couples get (I’ve quizzed him heavily on this)–he just doesn’t like it being called “marriage” because he claims that this is a religious concept. We’ve agreed to disagree on this.
Personally, I don’t think the government should be in the “marriage” business at all, for gay or straight couples. The church can do whatever it wants (I don’t have to like it, but they have a right to believe what they believe), but the thing that the government currently calls “marriage” should be renamed for everybody and offered equally to gay and straight couples alike. All are welcome to refer to themselves as “married” and to (if they wish) seek out a religious authority to put the religious spin on it (especially since there are churches that will marry gay couples for whom this is important). Just remove the term from civil usage. I know it’s simplistic and I’m sure there are reasons it won’t work, but it seems the best compromise to me.
My friends fall on two sides: one side wants a “traditional” life and marriage, consisting of adopting one or two kids when they’re in their mid 30’s and one person taking time off of work for awhile to “raise” them. They want seemingly all the trappings of married life that most people want and want to be considered equal citizens, if you will. They want to buy a house/apartment/condo, then get married, then have kids. For them, gay adoption rights are very important, just as important as marriage rights.
The other side strongly feels that marriage is not for gay people. They reason it should be allowed and legal but it absolutely does not nor will not affect their lives in the present or the future. Some of them say marriage is for straights and straights who want babies; they want none of it, especially not the babies.
I actually see it as polarizing the two groups. I don’t so much understand the second group’s feelings, since it should be a right they should have and want even if they choose not to exercise it. Perhaps because we’re all young the second group will change their mind as they mature?
Well, now the women I ask out can be both married AND gay, whereas before it was either one or the other.
Aside from that, not too much. I know some married gay people now, which is not noticeably different from knowing married straight people.
Course, my town has been a gay mecca for decades. Even before it was legal, non-legally-binding ceremonies weren’t uncommon, so I probably knew some we-know-it’s-not-legally-binding-but-we-consider-ourselves-married before as well.
–
I’m exaggerating, of course. The last woman I asked out was no longer married to her wife by the time I’d met her. Still didn’t go the way I was hoping it would.
The issue hasn’t affected me much personally, though my circle has exploded with gay people in the last few years. I have two lesbian cousins and the people I most often interact with at work are gay. Two are legally married and many are in long-term relationships, and I’m happy for them all.
I am relieved for my cousins that it is much easier to come out now than it was five to 10 years ago. They have a lot of friends and live in fairly liberal cities, and although one of their mothers didn’t take the news of her daughter’s sexuality very well, it appears she got over it. One is married, one is in a long-term relationship. They both seem happy.
Mostly, I’ve just realized how bullshit this country’s argument is about the sanctity of marriage. If we really felt this, we’d penalize the shit out of crimes within marriage and toughen our marriage and divorce laws. We’d limit the number of times and the circumstances under which you could marry. We’d make divorce much harder to obtain. After all, marriage is sacred. Abuse your spouse, or marry to commit fraud? We’d take those offenses much more seriously. But we don’t, because it never was about the sanctity of marriage. It was about keeping the homos away.