Weddings are terrible because the most obvious truth of the event--more obvious than "they look great," and more true than "they were made for each other"--is the one thing you're not allowed to say, or even to suggest, even when every last element of the pageant thrusts the thought to the center of your consciousness: This marriage will probably not last. They almost never do. And sometimes, even when they do, it'd be better if they didn't. Speak like that at a wedding and you're likely to be cast out as a cynic. It's more cynical, however, to perpetuate the idea of marriage--as promoted primarily to the very young, but visible everywhere in wedding culture--as a promise of love that lasts forever and never changes. What a nightmare of willful delusion.
And speaking of willful delusion, it's this same fantasy that lies at the heart of the current bulwark of opposition to gay marriage. It's less a question of religion or even orientation than one of entitled resentment; allowing gay people to be married introduces one more shard of complexity into the shattered dream of eternal heterosexual happiness.
The defense being used by opponents of gay marriage is primarily syntactical, a question of "traditional definitions," which is a sure sign that they have already lost the argument. The institution of marriage has withstood centuries of loveless hetero unions; it doesn't appear to be in any danger from a bunch of queers. If there is a threat, it lies in the simple, troubling ethical question raised by the ongoing battle: If we can agree that marriage is a secular union defined by its participants (can we at least admit that?), is it right for any couple to get married when some couples are arbitrarily denied the right to participate?
I got married because after six years of a tumultuous relationship, I couldn't imagine a future in which my girlfriend wasn't centrally involved in my life. She felt the same way about me. We didn't marry so that we could have kids, or receive legal benefits, or get a tax break. Our marriage is not a business agreement or procreation license, at least not in our minds. We wed as a symbolic gesture, largely for ourselves (but partly for the fun of public spectacle), to say that even though marriage is a risk, we believe the risk to be worth taking, for ourselves and for one another.
Of course, we do enjoy legal benefits, we probably will get a tax break, and one day, if we ever want to, we can have kids who will receive the same protection and legitimacy that we now share. Our relationship, and therefore our lives, has been validated in the eyes of our parents, friends, and civil society. We even got to go to Fiji. These facts aren't lost on me, they're just unconscious knowledge, perks of membership in the ruling class. But the current debate, which is less a debate than an attempt to back-justify an absurd stricture in the name of religious prejudice, has made me acutely conscious of the perks I enjoy. Regardless of why we decided to get married, the larger point now is that we could. And we only could because we're straight. And as anyone who's not a liar can tell you, just being straight is neither sufficient reason to get married, nor sufficient cause to be entitled to a right.
However, my consciousness of this disparity wouldn't prevent me from getting married again. Nor does it stop me from blanching with disdain when I hear news stories about gay couples rushing into sudden-deadline stunt weddings, just in case they decide to stay together. I love being married. I love the fact that my wife and I define the parameters of our marriage without being governed by the doctrine of some church. There is no valid argument for why any adult shouldn't have that same ability. The thought of amending the U.S. Constitution to actively deny a right to a group of people is an abomination of everything that document means to me and I will fight it any way I can. But I'm not so young as to believe that forgoing a right simply because it's denied to others will help the others win their battle. Maybe it's rationalization, or just the arrogance of over- entitlement, but I intend to stay married, because it is my right. The only resolution I can make is to exercise that right in direct, hostile opposition to those who would have us believe that traditional definitions are more important than basic human liberty. *
