I don’t really want to have a go at the OP, but the assumptions contained implicitly therein aggravate me quite a lot. First, there’s the implication that gays should be perceived to earn some favour that we’re granting them by settling down and being good monogamists. Cobblers. The first 500 gay “marriages” (as the BBC has it) could end in imminent divorce, and have no implications whatsoever for the rationality of our acknowledgement of equal rights for gays. Secondly, there’s the assumption that because Elton John (for whom I have no particular affection) is popularly known as a flamboyant gay man, he is likely to do something to disgrace gay marriage, or be promiscuous in some regard, when (as pointed out by others) even cursory research proves that his relationship has lasted longer than many of our own best efforts (he’s got me beat by a factor of four).
To restate the first point, we shouldn’t have to (and should have no desire to, save through academic interest) assess the “success” of gay marriage; the people of the UK have quite overwhelmingly accepted the principle of (near*) equality on first principles; not on the condition that nobody gets a gay “divorce” for a while. The answer to the OP is not “yes” or “no” but, “it doesn’t matter one whit.”
*Yes, this still irritates me, but I appear to be in a minority in the UK. Even gay people don’t seem excessively bothered by the relatively minor differences in rights and terminology.
“That very same day [December 8, 1971], as if to prove to himself there was no going back, he changed his name by deed poll. For a middle name, he looked both to the strong man of classical mythology, and to the broken-winded cart horse in his favourite TV comedy, Steptoe and Son. Now Reginald Kenneth Dwight was Elton Hercules John, legally and for ever.”
GorillaMan, I think we’re saying the same thing, just differently.
And just so the OP doesn’t think I’m hijacking the thread, no, I don’t think Elton had any master plan about marrying David.
DougC, I do not mean the following questions as an insult. I am genuinely baffled by your OP. I would genuinely like to know the answer to the following questions. I would prefer that other posters not attempt to answer these questions, since they are about DougC’s knowledge, and I don’t see that anyone else could answer these questions.
Even if you didn’t do any particular research before posting your OP, I don’t understand how you could have gotten the facts as mixed up as you did. I presume that, like most of us, you briefly scanned the news stories about Elton John’s marriage (or civil partnership, to be exact). All of these stories mentioned that Elton and his boyfriend had been together for a long time. None of them claimed that Elton would be the first person in line. None of them showed him making a big deal about publicity about this marriage. None of them claimed that he and Bernie Taupin were ever lovers. None of them mentioned any previous short relationships except (in some cases) his marriage to the German woman back in the 1980’s. Most of them carefully explained the difference between a marriage and a civil partnership. So where did you get your information from?
FWIW, I’m gay and American, and I agree with you entirely. If gay couples get all the rights of marriage, but not the word “marriage,” it’s still insulting and unequal, although of course much better than the current situation here.
As for the OP, I wouldn’t call it a celebrity marriage, because they’ve been together for quite a long time, and because the other guy (AFAIK) isn’t a celebrity. He’s only famous because he’s marrying (or “marrying”) Elton John. So it’s not like the two of them are doing it as a publicity stunt to get their names in the papers.
I hate the implication that any particular person has the responsibility or the right to represent an entire population. Should Elton John be caught in bed with six twenty-year-old boys next week and divorce his husband in the most outlandishly public of separations, I don’t see why that would matter at all. Gay marriage isn’t a privilege contingent on behaving right; deciding that one person has some responsibility to lead a perfectly blameless life to avoid making the other homos look bad is a disturbing suggestion, as it means that gay people only have the same rights as straight people as long as we maintain a higher standard of personal conduct.
Heh, the first place in the UK to be able to boast about a new sort of civil liberty and its Northern Ireland
Of course the bigots had their way outside the City Hall, protesting against two women marrying because it promoted sodomy (did they think that line through before they painted their placard? )
In answer to the OP: yes. The same way Brittany disgraced American straight marriage (twice!). Don’t get me started on Nick and Jessica or Tom and Katie.
English common law defined it as anal penetration (male-male or male-female), or any sex between a human and an animal of the opposite sex. In some states the statutory definition is or was broader. See http://www.sodomylaws.org/sensibilities/commonlaw.htm
There was someone who “made sure he was first in line”:
Matthew Roche had special permission to marry his partner Christopher Cramp a few hours after the Civil Partnership Act became law on 6th December. The ceremony was held at St Barnabas Hospice, Worthing. He died the next day.
This wasn’t like SF with thousands of people trying to get to one registry office. You just go to the registry office where you’d like to register your civil partnership, choose a date at least 14 days later and if they have space on the date, you have your 15 minute partnership ceremony.
So Elton and David chose Windsor, queued up, and registered their intent to have a civil partnership ceremony on the first day they were allowed to.
It’s their wedding, and they should be allowed to have it when they wanted and how they wanted. If that means a quiet ceremony with 24 guests that’s fine, and if it means 250 dancing boys in pink lycra performing an interpretive dance during the ceremony, which is broadcast live to the world on HBO, well that’s fine too.
Not my life, not my wedding, not my marriage, not my business.
I had a great aunt who was wife of a life peer (OK obvioulsy he was my great uncle but he died before I was round to meet him) and she was most certainly “Lady XYZ” - things might have changed tho’, not sure when he was knighted but the sixties at the latest. [/hijack]
Given that gay marriage has only been legal in the US (in Mass.) for a little over one year, a divorce of a US lesbian couple after a five-year marriage seems unlike-- nope, impossible.
You may be thinking of Vermont civil unions*. I’m sure that there have been breakups of such civilly unionized couples, and I’m sure there have been news reports about them. I vaguely recall some reports about child custody and visitation issues arising out of such breakups, but it certainly wasn’t covered like a vitally important story, such as Chandra Levy or JonBenet Ramsey.
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