For Better ... For Worse ...

A quote from Ellen DeGeneres:

"Watching the returns on election night was an amazing experience. Barack Obama is our new president. Change is here. I, like millions of Americans, felt like we had taken a giant step towards equality. We were watching history.

"This morning, when it was clear that Proposition 8 had passed in California, I can’t explain the feeling I had. I was saddened beyond belief. Here we just had a giant step towards equality and then on the very next day, we took a giant step away.

"I believe one day a 'ban on gay marriage' will sound totally ridiculous. In the meantime, I will continue to speak out for equality for all of us."

FOR BETTER: On October 18th, 2008 I married my love, Quibbit.
FOR WORSE: Now, just weeks later, couples who finally got the opportunity to do the same, had the right cruelly taken away.

How in the world can someone be so bold as to insinuate their own lifestyle choices into the lives of others?

My big question for some time now has been ... what exactly does it mean to be married? Ever since Quibbit and I got engaged it's been a question I've turned over and over in my head. Why do people get married? More specifically ... why did Quibbit and I choose to get married? And then further ... why did we choose to have a wedding ... a church ceremony followed by a reception populated by our friends and family? And how would I feel if I was told that no matter how much I loved my partner, that I was simply unfit to have the same joy, the same process, the same rights, both legal and human as every other "acceptable" loving couple? All these years I thought my longstanding friendships with people who were gay gave me an insite into their struggle. But no one just took away my wedding day ... no one just undid my choice. I realize I know NOTHING of what it feels like.

When people say "I don't believe in marriage", I would like it so much more if they qualified it with "for myself" or anything else that keeps me out of their self referential loop. Further, I would ask the same for those who say "I don't believe gays should be married". Please, keep others out of your self referential loop. These are some of the same people who feel that being gay is a choice. A bad choice. What's bad is the CHOICE to be close minded. Love, in whatever form, on whatever level, abiding by whatever terms, is never wrong, never bad. And should NEVER be controlled by those who don't understand or participate in it. You simply shouldn't legislate an emotion, a belief ... a core essence of existence.

I know gay couples who have been together for years and are 100% committed without being married. I know straight couples who also aren't married but are committed. Look, I can't seem to pin down why a wedding is so much more than the components. I just know that to me it is. I KNOW that something magical happened the day Quibbit and I stood in church, bonding our lives together. I saw it in our friend's faces. I've read it in words of people who were so moved by our day that they needed to tell us how deeply they were affected. But that day was simply an outward manifestation of what we've felt for each other from the beginning.

Our love and celebration was all around us, intangible, sparkling ... amazing. And Quibbit and I, by a stroke of luck, were able to have our day because our genders are considered an appropriate pairing.

If someone came to me today and told me that my marriage was now overturned I wouldn't even know how to process that. Because, ultimately, you can't go back and undo something that's been done. It begs the question of why anything is important ... why anything matters ... why we navigate through challenges at all ... I don't know the answer. I'm just asking the questions.

When I saw Ellen and Portia's beautiful wedding photos, I'd never felt so happy for a celebrity couple. I saw love and celebration, contentment, happiness ... and above all ... a click. Two spirits who came together and found their origin in each other. Why would strangers want to overturn something so meaningful simply because they don't understand it? Once again, I repeat what I'd said MONTHS ago ... it's the fine line between understanding and appreciating. You can think you understand what a process means ... and you can even appreciate what that process means for yourself. But unless you are completely without prejudice (and talking all across the board here ... ), TRUE prejudice -- an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge -- you simply cannot appreciate what the process means to other people. And therefore you have no right to meddle in it. I can't even imagine what it feels like to be hated by countless people for the simple expression of my love to my partner. I've been close friends with several gay people over the course of my life but until now I really didn't even slightly understand how awful it feels to be alienated by people who don't agree with how you choose to celebrate your love. I guess because it wasn't even an issue for me, I didn't understand that still, it was an issue for them.

"We don't need a piece of paper to prove our commitment" is often said. I find it odd that people even qualify that. No one needs anything to make something so. But if two people choose to get that little piece of paper ... isn't it hypocritical to demonize them for it? If you put meaning into something, then it holds meaning for you. Not to mention, it makes it legal, and give you protection under the law. So, in the most unromantic of lights, it sure does mean something.

All anyone asks for, ultimately, is understanding. And support of their decisions. And a little love along the way, instead of judgment. It's all I wanted from my friends ... and it's all I want for all my gay friends every where -- those who chose to have a ceremony, and those who didn't.

Quibbit, who's watched me cry over this, said that Proposition 8 may have some positive consequence ... becuase it forces people to re examine their feelings on this ... and brings people like myself to become even more committed to bringing about a change for equality. And he's right. While I've only stood on the sidelines for all these years, I now feel a desperate need to align myself with other like-minded thinkers and do all that I can to make sure that, as Ellen says, one day a "ban on gay marriage" will sound totally rediculous.

I just couldn't feel right about joyfully recounting my happiness without first mentioning how truly sad I am for every loving couple who was told their day didn't mean anything ... by people who had no right to say a word.