Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. We had opening weekend of Putnam County Spelling Bee. I would say it was a great success. Such a fun show to do, and I especially love working with so many talented people. If you get a chance come see us next weekend, I promise we will make you laugh.
I took the weekend off from blogging as I wanted to put all my energy into the play. So it was interesting to look at the news this morning and see what had developed in Japan, Libya, and of course see if there were any new headlines in the gay community.
As I scanned the countries newspapers I found an interesting editorial in a Maryland newspaper. Maryland came so close to legalizing same sex marriage this year, and the state is still aflutter with political buzz on the issue. The letter was written by two progressive’s who had some interesting ideas on how the LGTB community was going around asking for marriage equality. I think they brought up a couple of good points.
They asked, how many wedding ceremonies have you been to where the vows included mentioning some or all of the 1,138 federal rights that are afforded to married people? How many times have you heard the best man give a toast to the fact that now the newlyweds had access to social security benefits, survivor pension options, tax breaks, spousal health care? Anyway, you get the idea. Marriage is about love, commitment, trust, family, for better or worse, and a whole bunch of other sappy stuff.
They actually gave kudos the LGTB community for starting to shift the focus of the marriage equality debate to the sappier side of things rather than just standing up and screaming, “Give us equal rights, and give ‘em to us now!” This group had done some independent polling and found that when most people were confronted with the whole argument of give us rights, benefits, equality and fairness, the overwhelming response was… fine, give ‘em civil unions and then maybe they’ll shut up about it! But when asked about being allowed to marry for love, most people said they had no problem with two people getting married for love even if they were a same sex couple.
I heard from many of our Wyoming Legislators on why they had voted against the hate legislation this last session, and many said it was because of personal stories; and actually seeing that this legislation was going to have a negative impact on a handful of their constituents. The same thing is being said in Maryland. Even though same sex marriage didn’t pass this session it may in the next, and those legislators also said the personal stories had a huge impact on how they voted.
I was thrilled to see a new ABC/Washington Post Poll that shows 53% of Americans now support gay marriage. This is big news and a giant step in the right direction.
Please keep telling your stories! I will tell mine over and over again. God bless all of our straight allies who also listen to our stories time and time again and stand up for us by sending emails, making phone calls, attending rallies, and lending us a shoulder to cry on when we need it most.
I’m not saying we need to stop talking about equal rights, but we need to make sure we continue to make this discussion deeply personal!!
Jeran
Well said. The rights are important, and perhaps would be acceptable if provided in true civil unions. But the real point is the intensely personal nature of marriage. My husband and I were married last fall. Like other marriages, the focus of our friends and family were all about how great it was we were binding ourselves in love and trust. The world would be so much better if acts of our lawmakers were always focused on increasing love and trust rather than hate and misunderstanding. Thank you for all your hard and thankless work during this past legislative session.
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