Thursday, May 22, 2008

The Right to Marry

As many of you may or may not know, Ellen recently interviewed presidential hopeful, John McCain on her talk show. As she has announced, she will be getting "married" this upcoming summer, legally, now that California has allowed for same sex unions in that state. She address the topic of gay marriage with the Senator, and I believe does a wonderful job in articulating my beliefs, as well as countless other individuals on the topic.

I have been surprised by many people's opinions on the issue of gay marriage, especially from gay people with whom I have spoken to in my own area about this matter. Perhaps it is our jaded outlook on life and relationships in general that makes the notion of marriage seem trivial and not worth fighting for, or perhaps we as a society have devalued monogamous and committed relationships to the point that "marriage" seems outdated and irrelevant. Some of us however still hold true to the concept of one person loving one person, forsaking all others... "for as long as we both shall live."

My argument has been, and will continue to be, that if you don't believe in marriage, don't get married. I however, as a legal citizen of the United States should have that right, and that option if I so choose. If you want to "protect marriage", then I suggest you do as comedian Wanda Sykes suggests and, "outlaw divorce".

Ellen does a wonderful job equating gay marriage with women's and African American's suffrage movements, which basically was a fight for equal rights among those who were seen as different, even going so far as to use religious texts to justify legal and social separation and denial of rights. As Ellen says in this clip, which I have included in this post, this concept of a legal contact (but not full marriage and the social recognition that goes along with it) is like saying, "You can sit there, but just not there." It makes no sense.

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