Happy National Coming Out Day! (In case anyone out there was still wondering, I'm a lesbian.)
To celebrate, the Supreme Court of the state of Connecticut has decided to let same-sex couples marry. What's particularly interesting about this ruling (versus Massachusettes and California which are the only other states to grant gay marriage) is that the Connecticut legislature had volunteered a "civil union" type arrangement like Vermont's, which more or less grants the status of marriage to same-sex couples under a different name. Not good enough, the court said and ruled that "denying marriage to same-sex couples would create separate standards."
There's often an argument that goes "who cares what they call it, just give same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as straight couples." But I have always held that if you don't call it "marriage" you leave a convenient loophole for undoing the whole thing by having states start passing laws restricting certain things to "married couples." You see why it has to be called the same thing?
I've been married twice to my partner. Once extralegally in a lovely wedding and once legally in a hotel room in Vancouver. That was lovely too, though in different ways. Neither wedding "counts" as far as anybody is concerned in the state of Illinois. We are perfect strangers who can visit each other in the hospital strictly upon the whim of the nurse on duty. (Yes, we have all the legal documents but those, sadly, are not always respected.)
Now for the real controversy. Forget marriage. Give us universal health care and the right to name whomsoever we please as additional legal parents of our children, or to adopt together regardless of legal or blood relationships. Give us the right to pass our property after death to someone/someones not related to us by blood or law without taxing it or else tax everybody. Give us the right to choose who we want to see in the hospital, regardless of legal or blood ties. Marriage is an antiquated notion better left to personal choice and religious tradition. The law should stay out of it entirely. It is immoral to award certain rights to certain people based on how their families are formed.
So there you go. I'm now out to you as a [married] queer opposed to marriage. What are you hiding in your closet? Come out! Come out!
