why does the name matter, anyway?
Mar. 22nd, 2004 01:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kodalaiYou know, I've been thinking about this for a long time, and at one point I came to realize something.
A lot of gay marriage detractors -- or at least skeptics -- pull out the line "Why should the name matter? If you're in love, you don't need the name. And if you're just in it for benefits, you're being greedy."
Why should the name matter... Because it's the right to define for yourself who and what you are. That was a big part of the civil rights movement; the right for groups to say for themselves what they wanted to be defined as.
Suppose you have a girl, who has three white grandparents and one black. She's grown up in a predominantly white community, and considers herself to be ethnically white.
Now for whatever reason, say on the SATs, she's asked to identify herself. She puts down "white." And the administrator or whoever's in charge says "Scuse me, but you aren't white. You're black." She says, but I'm mostly white and I consider myself white. It's part of my identity, it's an integral part of who I am. They say, "Tough luck. We're the white community, and we have the right to say what white is and what it isn't. And you aren't. Sorry, go away now, black girl."
To a large extent this is the same thing. We have a pool of people who are, for all practical purposes, married. If you've lived together for forty years, have sex every night, own your own house with a white picket fence, raise kids, have a dog, look like hell in the morning over breakfast, then for all practical purposes you're married. So now the straight community is saying, "Well, tough luck. We're the married community and we say you aren't married. Go away, unmarried people."
And the gays are standing up and saying, Excuse me, but I'm married. I consider myself married. I live a life that is identical to yours except for the gender of the person that I'm living with. I *am* married. And the straight community says "Nope, you're not. Goodbye!"
Why does the name matter? Because the married gays have a right to look at themselves and say, "I am married. That is part of my identity. I have a right to define who I am."
A lot of gay marriage detractors -- or at least skeptics -- pull out the line "Why should the name matter? If you're in love, you don't need the name. And if you're just in it for benefits, you're being greedy."
Why should the name matter... Because it's the right to define for yourself who and what you are. That was a big part of the civil rights movement; the right for groups to say for themselves what they wanted to be defined as.
Suppose you have a girl, who has three white grandparents and one black. She's grown up in a predominantly white community, and considers herself to be ethnically white.
Now for whatever reason, say on the SATs, she's asked to identify herself. She puts down "white." And the administrator or whoever's in charge says "Scuse me, but you aren't white. You're black." She says, but I'm mostly white and I consider myself white. It's part of my identity, it's an integral part of who I am. They say, "Tough luck. We're the white community, and we have the right to say what white is and what it isn't. And you aren't. Sorry, go away now, black girl."
To a large extent this is the same thing. We have a pool of people who are, for all practical purposes, married. If you've lived together for forty years, have sex every night, own your own house with a white picket fence, raise kids, have a dog, look like hell in the morning over breakfast, then for all practical purposes you're married. So now the straight community is saying, "Well, tough luck. We're the married community and we say you aren't married. Go away, unmarried people."
And the gays are standing up and saying, Excuse me, but I'm married. I consider myself married. I live a life that is identical to yours except for the gender of the person that I'm living with. I *am* married. And the straight community says "Nope, you're not. Goodbye!"
Why does the name matter? Because the married gays have a right to look at themselves and say, "I am married. That is part of my identity. I have a right to define who I am."
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 02:06 am (UTC)Yeah, shame on people for spending their lives living with and supporting the person they love, and then expecting to get health care and death benefits like married people. [/sarcasm]
If for no other reason, I'd support gay marriage just because I think gay couples deserve those same benefits straight couples get.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 04:33 am (UTC)I need more sleep.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 08:45 am (UTC)