Last week, as I'm sure many people are already aware, the United States Supreme Court made a landmark ruling granting equal marriage rights to LGBT couples. The timing, during National Pride Month, couldn't have been more perfect. That same night I attended a rally for New York City Pride, and the sense of victory was overwhelming. Not to mention all of the beautiful couples with signs reading things like "We've been together 23 years, now we can finally be recognized by law". Wrap your head around that for a moment. 23 years this particular couple had been together. Unable to get spousal benefits. Unable to be each other's next of kin over existing family members. Unable to be validated, basically. Second class, essentially. The look of joy and emotion on their faces was palpable. I cried myself when I saw the news reports. And I've never even come close to getting married. But after a lifetime of having our legal system, and by association the country that utilizes it, tell queer people that we were not worthy of being equal, here was absolute proof that we were. Mind you, the Justices' pages and pages of debate and reasoning was often loaded with some of the same nonsense that's kept us from being equal from the beginning. "Marriage is between a man and a woman..." Says who? Somebody in a book written centuries ago? "Marriage is sacred." I believe this also, but there are loads of straight people cheating and getting divorced and remarried multiple times who apparently do not. You get my point. Any and all opposition to equal marriage always boils down to: "I do not believe two men or two women can be called a marriage because" a) My God told me so b) I hate queers and me being equal with them is appalling c) If we allow two men and two women to marry they make a mockery of marriage what's next a man and a dog?
Now let's be honest. All of those reasons are bullshit. First of all, and beyond the fact that it is made up dogma garbage, why should what your God tells you is morally right affect my civil rights in any way, shape, or form? It shouldn't. Period. That's like me coming to you and saying I just read this amazing book denouncing religions so from now on we won't be granting tax exempt status to them or acknowledging their dogma in our political system (which we're not supposed to be doing anyway, motherfuckers!). So sorry not sorry. Yes my example is very extreme. But it is disproportionately the same thing. A group of people who read a book and decided that the supernatural being they live their lives by hated queers and wouldn't want them getting married decided to make sure that didn't happen in real life. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, like the plot of a South Park episode, and yet it's kept queer people as second class citizens for countless decades. Then there's the B option. Hey, at least when some hateful religious douchebag tells me he doesn't want equal marriage because he hates queers, I don't get that smarmy sense of condescension that I get from most political figures who try to hide their hate in reasoning and fancy words. At least with option B you know you're dealing with a reprehensible piece of garbage right up front. But he's an honest reprehensible piece of garbage. I have to admire just that. Also, at least with the option B assholes we know where we stand. Until they experience a drunken, lonely night of mutual masturbation with their BFF and fellow gun club member Cooter, there is no coming around to the proper way of thinking for these people (notice I am aware I've made the hateful people a closeted, self-loathing dude mainly because those are the ones I ran into throughout my young life but obviously there are haters of all walks, creeds and sexes). There will never be an epiphany for these people. There will never be a meeting them on mutual terms. It makes it that much easier to dismiss them and continue the struggle. Then there's option C which is really option B gussied up with a "What if...?" scenario. In no way does allowing two men and two women to marry begin a slippery slope toward bestiality. That's just hate masquerading as fear mongering. So they're all bullshit reasons. And here we are. Finally we have been validated as equal citizens with the rest of the country. Several decades late, but I digress.
And yet, this week has seen a surge of news stories concerning county clerks and Governors who have refused to follow the Supreme Court's ruling. One office in the south resigned en masse in protest. Why do Governors even have an option? That's like me saying know what I don't agree with the criminalization of marijuana so I'm gonna go out score an ounce and light up in my local 7-11 parking lot. Do you think if a cop pulled up next to me he would deal with my "I find this law to be morally against my religious beliefs" bullshit? No! I'd be arrested in a heartbeat. I understand this is a bigger issue about state rights versus country rights, but when you're dealing with basic human rights I don't think any state should have a standing to say "No, no we don't recognize those fags as equal humans sorry. They're mentally disturbed and we're not going to placate them." And that's what the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama and numerous other Bible Belt states are saying. Point blank. You can try to couch that message in any sort of pseudo-loving religious nonsense you want, it doesn't change the fact that you're breaking the law. So, no doubt in the next several months we will see a surge of these types of encounters. And a surge of lawsuits. And hopefully, despite this opposition, a surge of queer couples getting married.
A Conservative acquaintance brought up this passive/aggressive argument concerning the equal marriage ruling: that we didn't really win anything because it wasn't brought about by popular opinion in every state. I was kind of flummoxed by the topic, really, because its always been a black and white issue for me. There is no room for gray. And I could care less about state rights when it concerns basic human rights for all. That's like Hitler saying during the Holocaust "Well I can't really stop killing Jews the states haven't really voted for it so it must be ok." Again, extreme example, but totally merited. I could also care less about whether it feels like a "real win" to me. What's a "real win" in this person's mind? A moral victory? Fuck that. I want a human rights victory, no matter how I get it. A "real win" is Dave and Kevin walking up to the counter in the clerk's office, getting their marriage license, finding a priest they like , and tying the knot so that they can share in the exact same marriage benefits everyone else does. And if that's not morally right to you. then you are part of the problem.
This is also not to say that the battle for equal rights begins and ends with marriage. In something like 32 states in America LGBT people can still be fired for simply existing as an LGBT person. Not to mention the areas of the world like Uganda, Russia, and the Middle East, where queer people are routinely publicly shamed and often murdered by vicious mobs. No, the fight is far from over now that LGBT marriage has been made legal. But a supremely important and historical step has been taken. And above and beyond all of these talking points is the fact that two people who love each other had previously been held down by the rest of society and not been allowed to validate their union. Boiled down to that simple equation how can anyone still shout their nonsense anti-marriage equality rhetoric? In a world that's as shitty as this one is at times, filled with war and hate, how can you deny two loving people the right to legally be together? It is beyond me. Just as it was when I watched those loving couples crying tears of joy on the pier in New York City that day. Love is not always at a premium in America. We'd like to believe it is. So I was glad that in this particular instance, for once, love did win unequivocally.
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