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sasha_featherSame-Sex Marriage
Obviously, people who want to get married should be able to get married, and it's nice that President Obama said so (he gets a cookie for acknowledging that gay people have basic rights, yay). I am just not thrilled about how this is the #1 priority right now for the queer rights movement in the U.S.
I'm a "quirky alone" queer person-- meaning I'm pretty comfortable as a single person and not actively looking for a long-term relationship. Many of my friends are poly and some are asexual. Some of my friends just aren't interested in marriage. I think that we should have the same rights as everyone who is married.
I'm not the only one who feels this way: A letter to the Washington Post newspaper:
By Lauren Taylor
Thursday, May 10, 2012
I’m a progressive, out lesbian, but I’m not doing a happy dance about President Obama’s support for gay marriage.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think we (the country, the society) should be giving rights, privileges and protections to anyone — gay, straight, bisexual or other — based on their sexual or romantic relationships. I think most of the rights and privileges gay men and lesbians are seeking by pursuing marriage rights should be granted to human beings because they are human beings, whether or not they find one person they want to spend the rest of their lives with.
A few examples:
● Everyone should be able to designate who they want to be able to visit them in the hospital. Everyone should be able to take leave to care for a sick loved one.
● Everyone should have access to health insurance. If you’re self-employed, unemployed or work for a place that doesn’t provide health insurance, you shouldn’t need to have a romantic partner who has a job that provides health benefits to get coverage.
● If a couple with a child splits, married or not, all parents should be eligible for visitation and responsible for child support.
Marriage generally earns people tax breaks, respectability, and gifts.
Naamen Tilahoun also wrote a manifesto on this subject: Not the Marrying Kind. He talks about marriage as a problematic power structure.
When talking withfuturansky one day, she used the phrase, "the hegemony of the couple". To me, it's a whole lot easier for me to come out to someone when I can say "my girlfriend"; ie, even being in a couple earns me respectability and places me into a safe category in people's minds. But I am usually not in a couple: I'm usually single. I think that idea of safety is somehow playing a part in this movement... placing people into known categories. When really the category should simply be "human".
Obviously, people who want to get married should be able to get married, and it's nice that President Obama said so (he gets a cookie for acknowledging that gay people have basic rights, yay). I am just not thrilled about how this is the #1 priority right now for the queer rights movement in the U.S.
I'm a "quirky alone" queer person-- meaning I'm pretty comfortable as a single person and not actively looking for a long-term relationship. Many of my friends are poly and some are asexual. Some of my friends just aren't interested in marriage. I think that we should have the same rights as everyone who is married.
I'm not the only one who feels this way: A letter to the Washington Post newspaper:
By Lauren Taylor
Thursday, May 10, 2012
I’m a progressive, out lesbian, but I’m not doing a happy dance about President Obama’s support for gay marriage.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think we (the country, the society) should be giving rights, privileges and protections to anyone — gay, straight, bisexual or other — based on their sexual or romantic relationships. I think most of the rights and privileges gay men and lesbians are seeking by pursuing marriage rights should be granted to human beings because they are human beings, whether or not they find one person they want to spend the rest of their lives with.
A few examples:
● Everyone should be able to designate who they want to be able to visit them in the hospital. Everyone should be able to take leave to care for a sick loved one.
● Everyone should have access to health insurance. If you’re self-employed, unemployed or work for a place that doesn’t provide health insurance, you shouldn’t need to have a romantic partner who has a job that provides health benefits to get coverage.
● If a couple with a child splits, married or not, all parents should be eligible for visitation and responsible for child support.
Marriage generally earns people tax breaks, respectability, and gifts.
Naamen Tilahoun also wrote a manifesto on this subject: Not the Marrying Kind. He talks about marriage as a problematic power structure.
When talking with
futuransky one day, she used the phrase, "the hegemony of the couple". To me, it's a whole lot easier for me to come out to someone when I can say "my girlfriend"; ie, even being in a couple earns me respectability and places me into a safe category in people's minds. But I am usually not in a couple: I'm usually single. I think that idea of safety is somehow playing a part in this movement... placing people into known categories. When really the category should simply be "human".
I don't know, you're almost making to much sense!
Date: 2012-05-16 07:51 am (UTC)And yeah, marriage can be a fine thing if you want it, but as you said elsecomment, in a just society we wouldn't need to do it for stuff like health insurance and legal next-of-kin/coparenting stuff.