Gay Marriage

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1 December 2010 ()

   

What is it about two people of the same sex getting married that freaks so many straights out?

Now we love this clip, and the campaign, and yeah it's obviously based in the situation in the USA. But the attitudes they are protesting about are found here too, found pretty much everywhere.

And it's all just so damn hypocritical. As one of them says, if they are really so keen about protecting marriage, why don't they just outlaw divorce? Why is it okay for all sorts of jerks who hate us to screw around, to get divorced, but we can't get our relationships recognised as equal?

We have Civil Unions here in NZ, and they're an improvement for sure - but the fact that we can't legally call it "Marriage" still discriminates against us to some extent, it marks Civil Unions out as just not quite the same. 

In an ideal world, we'd all be able to get our relationships recognised by the state under exactly the same names and terms - you can throw whatever religious stuff on top you want, but the real issue is being seen as exactly equal in the eyes of the law. And it matters. 

If they have to use different language to describe what we do when we commit to someone we love, it marks us out (again) as different - it works against normalising the love of two women, or two men - and when we love we are just as normal as any straight couple.

The point they make about people hating us is the key one. Some people really do hate us queers, hate us enough to want to deny us a full and happy life, and some hate us so much they actually want to destroy us. 

It is incredible that something as simple as two women or two men loving each other and wanting to say that publically and proudly can still cause such strong reactions. But it does. 

Life is so much better than it was, that's for sure, but we still live in a society that doesn't make us 100% welcome - we still make an awful lot of people uncomfortable or downright angry.

This matters, because it feeds us a pretty constant background hum of negative ideas and images about what it is to be gay, and we really don't need those. They might be at a low level, you might not even notice them, but they're there. 

The happier we are, the safer we feel, the more integrated into society that we become, the better we are maintaining ourselves, at keeping ourselves strong and healthy.

 
What is it about two people of the same sex getting married that freaks so many straights out?
Now we love this clip, and the campaign, and yeah it's obviously based in the situation in the USA. But the attitudes they are protesting about are found here too, found pretty much everywhere.
And it's all just so damn hypocritical. As one of them says, if they are really so keen about protecting marriage, why don't they just outlaw divorce? Why is it okay for all sorts of jerks who hate us to screw around, to get divorced, but we can't get our relationships recognised as equal?
We have Civil Unions here in NZ, and they're an improvement for sure - but the fact that we can't legally call it "Marriage" still discriminates against us to some extent, it marks Civil Unions out as just not quite the same. 
In an ideal world, we'd all be able to get our relationships recognised by the state under exactly the same names and terms - you can throw whatever religious stuff on top you want, but the real issue is being seen as exactly equal in the eyes of the law. And it matters. 
If they have to use different language to describe what we do when we commit to someone we love, it marks us out (again) as different - it works against normalising the love of two women, or two men - and when we love we are just as normal as any straight couple.
The point they make about people hating us is the key one. Some people really do hate us queers, hate us enough to want to deny us a full and happy life, and some hate us so much they actually want to destroy us. 
It is incredible that something as simple as two women or two men loving each other and wanting to say that publically and proudly can still cause such strong reactions. But it does. 
Life is so much better than it was, that's for sure, but we still live in a society that doesn't make us 100% welcome - we still make an awful lot of people uncomfortable or downright angry.
This matters, because it feeds us a pretty constant background hum of negative ideas and images about what it is to be gay, and we really don't need those. They might be at a low level, you might not even notice them, but they're there. 
The happier we are, the safer we feel, the more integrated into society that we become, the better we are maintaining ourselves, at keeping ourselves strong and healthy.
 

 

 

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The Sexpert, 8 November 2010

OK

josh, 11 November 2010

i fully agree with what you have said in this, it is hard for us to fit in when it comes to Marriage as we can’t call it that, this country is changing but its changing slowly

Olderinthehutt, 16 January 2011

Civil unions give people legal rights, but isn’t marriage about children?