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I swore several years ago that I would not get married unless I could be married in Virginia and/or Maryland--no going to New Jersey or Massachusetts, no moving to Canada, because giving up my US citizenship would be like removing a part of my body. If I can't be married at home, I won't be married abroad, because marriage isn't real unless it counts everywhere.
Of course, I've also been pretty sure ever since high school that I was never getting married at all, given my singular lack of success at anything approaching romantic relationships.
I probably won't get to wear that white wedding dress and have the big church wedding with the cake and the rice (because that would require having some guy that I wanted to marry, and my interest in men remains mainly theoretical), but that's not what I really want anyway. I just want the opportunity to get a marriage license if I want one, and if I can only get one for half the potential love interests out there, then it's a worthless piece of paper. If I can't marry a woman, than there's no reason to marry a man, either--there would always be that doubt, that worry that maybe I don't really love him, but am only settling for second-best, because I can't have what I really want, but wanted to have something.
Every state that voted to define marriage as "between a man and a woman" yesterday violated the spirit of what our constitution (both state constitutions and the US Constitution) stands for--they spat in the face of the idea of separation of church and state, when they made political decisions based on religious principles; they violated the spirit if not the letter (and possibly the letter, too) of the 14th Amendment when they enshrined discrimination in their state constitutions; they willfully refused to "secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity" by deciding that only heterosexual married couples, not bisexuals or gays, and not unmarried heterosexual couples, deserved certain of those blessings.
And Virginia passing such an ammendment is the worst of the lot. It's one of the three states (along with Massachusetts and Pennslyvania) that led the US into the American Revolution, the state whose Declaration of Rights inspired the Declaration of Independance, the Bill of Rights, and the French Declaration of the Right of Man. The state which has an over-two-hundred-year-old article in its constitution stating that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities..."
Yes, you read that right. It's supposed to be literally unconstitutional for Virginians to let their religious beliefs affect the way they govern their state. Jefferson probably wouldn't have supported gay marriage, but I'd like to think that he's rolling over in his grave at the way people voted with their Bibles yesterday.
The American people as a whole might have voted Democratic, but the passage of all those bigoted ammendments shows that a majority of them are members of the Religious Right at heart.
On the other hand, Rumsfeld is resigning (yay!), South Dakota got rid of their hideous anti-abortion law, and George Allen and Bob Ehrlich were voted out of office (sweet, sweet justice for the horribly annoying campaign adds they sponsored), so there are one or two bright spots in the world. But the fact that our leadership is in different hands is balanced out by that fact that a majority of the voting population in numerous states think I'm a second class citizen and have taken steps to codify this belief as law.
Of course, I've also been pretty sure ever since high school that I was never getting married at all, given my singular lack of success at anything approaching romantic relationships.
I probably won't get to wear that white wedding dress and have the big church wedding with the cake and the rice (because that would require having some guy that I wanted to marry, and my interest in men remains mainly theoretical), but that's not what I really want anyway. I just want the opportunity to get a marriage license if I want one, and if I can only get one for half the potential love interests out there, then it's a worthless piece of paper. If I can't marry a woman, than there's no reason to marry a man, either--there would always be that doubt, that worry that maybe I don't really love him, but am only settling for second-best, because I can't have what I really want, but wanted to have something.
Every state that voted to define marriage as "between a man and a woman" yesterday violated the spirit of what our constitution (both state constitutions and the US Constitution) stands for--they spat in the face of the idea of separation of church and state, when they made political decisions based on religious principles; they violated the spirit if not the letter (and possibly the letter, too) of the 14th Amendment when they enshrined discrimination in their state constitutions; they willfully refused to "secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity" by deciding that only heterosexual married couples, not bisexuals or gays, and not unmarried heterosexual couples, deserved certain of those blessings.
And Virginia passing such an ammendment is the worst of the lot. It's one of the three states (along with Massachusetts and Pennslyvania) that led the US into the American Revolution, the state whose Declaration of Rights inspired the Declaration of Independance, the Bill of Rights, and the French Declaration of the Right of Man. The state which has an over-two-hundred-year-old article in its constitution stating that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities..."
Yes, you read that right. It's supposed to be literally unconstitutional for Virginians to let their religious beliefs affect the way they govern their state. Jefferson probably wouldn't have supported gay marriage, but I'd like to think that he's rolling over in his grave at the way people voted with their Bibles yesterday.
The American people as a whole might have voted Democratic, but the passage of all those bigoted ammendments shows that a majority of them are members of the Religious Right at heart.
On the other hand, Rumsfeld is resigning (yay!), South Dakota got rid of their hideous anti-abortion law, and George Allen and Bob Ehrlich were voted out of office (sweet, sweet justice for the horribly annoying campaign adds they sponsored), so there are one or two bright spots in the world. But the fact that our leadership is in different hands is balanced out by that fact that a majority of the voting population in numerous states think I'm a second class citizen and have taken steps to codify this belief as law.