Once upon a time, there was a land that welcomed marriage equality...
… one day, that will be a great way to start our fairy tale. Right now, though, we are waiting patiently for certain people who are still evolving… and they know who they are. [wink]
So we must wait. And while we wait... here are two points to throw into the chatter.
Point One: MARRIAGE IS STRENGTHENED WITH MARRIAGE EQUALITY
As seen recently on Rachel Maddow, fear mongering about unisex bathrooms and same-sex marriage horrified mid-1970s America, and played a role in derailing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from final ratification. Other factors were at play, of course, but back then, scaring people about change drowned out the central debate about the merits of the ERA, as a significant necessary next step in the civil rights movement. The defeat of the ERA remains a big win for the old male establishment.
Today, fear mongering against marriage equality – led boldly by certain groups often discussed here – continues to center around the degradation of the institution of marriage, were same-sex couples introduced into the mix.
Opponents insist on using the same haunted house from the 1970s, and people just don't seem to be buying it any more. Same-sex marriage has been introduced into the mix. A majority of Americans now support marriage equality. We now have facts compiled from over five years of marriage statistics in Massachusetts. We now have facts about the gravity and success of committed relationships that are founded on love and understanding. We now have facts about what happens to marriages that would likely not have happened, if someone were only honest about who they were in the first place.
No matter how much fear mongering is attempted – there is no more denying that marriage equality gives the word “marriage” the essence of its true meaning: that it is a union made from love between two people who are inside this love and committed to each other. Everything else is irrelevant.
As such, marriage – the institution – will be strengthened when equality happens, because society finally gets to step aside and allow each human to imagine the future they deserve with the person with whom they deserve to share it.
Point Two: FORGET LOVING VS. VIRGINIA... IT’LL BE MORE LIKE THE 19TH
Though necessary at the time, the Supreme Court decision, Loving vs. Virginia (1967), which made it illegal for anyone to impose any race-based marriage restrictions on any couple, is not the only precedent to which those looking to contextualize marriage equality can turn.
Prior to Loving vs. Virginia, inter-racial marriages were happening every day in America. Loving vs. Virginia was simply a federal government fix to a pervasive [yet decidedly not major] anti-African-American racial problem in a handful of states.
That said the impact of the Loving vs. Virginia decision wouldn’t begin to match the potential impact that federal marriage equality can have on our nation. When Marriage Equality is the law of the land – and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed – the nation will be significantly altered. For good.
This federal government fix – no matter from which branch it arrives – will feel less like Loving vs. Virginia, and a lot more like the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which put into the US Constitution women's right to vote. The suffrage movement, which began among the states and – very slowly at times – amassed small victories until finally emerging victorious in 1920, is a more familiar road. The significance of that victory and the path the suffragists took to get there mirror current heroic efforts to reach our own finish line. History does tend to repeat itself, in strange and happy ways.
When marriage equality happens... for the first time, a door will appear on every gay person’s life that had not been there before. The implications of which – think about it for just a few seconds – are going to be huge.
... and, soon enough, we can all live happily ever after.
CREDITS PRINCE ILLUSTRATION SUFFRAGE POSTER
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