Two words affirm most every sacred oath.
I do.
From the Presidential oath of office, to the seal of judicial testimony and, of course, that most joyous oath, dearest to us all, marriage. More than any other, those two words mark a beginning.
After taking way-too-long to state the obvious, on June 28, 2013, the judicial system envisioned by our founding fathers upheld the constitutional rights of all Americans. Now, all Americans (or at least all the ones in California and in a few other constitutionally adherent states) have the right to marry. What’s more, our Federal government can no longer actively discriminate against us and we will be treated a bit more like citizens in our own country.
The cynical will stir up a lot of other nonsense, encouraging bigots to believe that it is somehow the majority’s right to vote away the inalienable rights guaranteed to us all. Their premise is too stupid even to say out loud and only the most ignorant among us will fall for it. But the cynics will use that ignorance as means to rip off the gullible and get out the bigot vote.
For now though, there is a little more equality in California and across America and a lot less risk to all Californians and Americans that their civil rights might be voted away.
Now what?
We’ve been fighting for the right, but now we have arrived at a new and much scarier place – marriage.
I haven’t even had a date in I’m not sure how long so marriage isn’t on my horizon. I’m just glad that I have greater recognition as an actual citizen in this country. With DOMA gone, I feel like I finally turned 21 and I actually have real-full,-grown-up-American-rights, at least within the borders of the state where I’m lucky enough to live. So, we’ve gained a bit more recognition and with growing support, little by little, things are actually getting better.
Even so, there’s this new beginning. We’ve spent a lot of time fighting for the right to marry. Now that we’re here, I wonder if we’ve paused to consider what having that right actually means.
With a 50% failure rate among our straight brothers and sisters, who have had thousands of years to work it out, I’m not sure anyone among the newly enfranchised has really paused to reflect on the simple but profound oath that underlies this right and institution.
I can write my own vows. I can take the old fashioned ones prescribed by some faith. Or I can simply agree to comply with those the state administers. Whatever the vows, every “I do” comes down to the same thing:
“I promise it’s you and me forever, no matter what. Period. I do.”
Golly.
That’s huge. And a little terrifying. I’m not saying I don’t want it, but from the safety of the sidelines I can say, hats off. That is a lot. I think it’s easy to get lost in the ceremony and the drama and the celebration and hard to really grasp the scope of the commitment that marriage asks of us, gay or straight.
We’ve been so busy arguing for the right, we don’t even know what we’re going to do about the whole last name thing. Will we all be hyphenates? Will we keep our names? If we give up our names, whose do we take? What about the children’s last names? If it’s hyphenates, the exponential potential for last names offers a whole new challenge. If hyphenate child marries hyphenate child, then do they have four last names? And their children? That’s eight last names in two generations.
Is it “I now pronounce you husband and husband” or “wife and wife” or just “married?” How do we refer to our spouse? Will we just keep husband and wife? Or will there be new words for it?
But beyond the norms of the social construct, how the hell do you live up to that promise?
It has always been my belief that Gianni Versace would still be alive today if there had been gay marriage back then. My reasoning goes something like: if Andrew’s “husband” had been faced with giving up half of all his income to ditch Andrew and move on to a newer model, Andrew would still be living in the beach house they shared — one way or the other — and Gianni would still be designing loud clothing and opera sets.
So, with all my worldly goods I thee endow. Ready for that?
How about in sickness and in health?
What about when the wagon of love breaks under the baggage of life? The romance is fun, the heat of passion is exciting and the wedding is beautiful. Most of life, though, is the groceries and the dishes and the bills and the flu. My parents are still together 125 years later and it’s not because everyday has been filled with sunshine and roses. There have been times when we kids thought they should call it quits. But they’re still there.
Staying, when you’d rather go, is at the essence of the commitment of marriage. If our straight brethren and sisteren can only manage it less than half the time even with every social convention and institution on the planet built and conceived to support and encourage their bond, I wonder – and with more than a little awe — at how we will do at this.
Without the right, gay people have not had the opportunity to mature as a society. Our mating practices and rituals are stunted, juvenile and unevolved.
I look forward to the collapse of the extensive second-class conventions peculiar to our furtive and fearful sexuality. Imagine an end to our misplaced value on youth. What about the jettisoning of the possibility of a third to keep it interesting? What if we scrapped our mistrust and ostracism of the single among us by those already paired? Think of us overcoming our lack of respect for the commitments of others and bringing an end to the destructive open season on other people’s partners. Envision us maturing past the disregard for our elders and coming to know and possibly even revere our own history and heritage.
I can’t wait to see what happens when being gay is no longer one long competition for attention in a dark, smelly bar. I long for the possibility of the new and stronger community that can grow up around this fearsome commitment we are preparing to make to each other; that we have fought for the right to make to each other.
We have asked for and been given equal rights, but now we must accept equal responsibility.
Do I think it will be easy? With a 50% failure rate, apparently not.
Do I think we’re up to it?
I do.
Eric Shaw Quinn 
Great article! I often wondered whether the gay community as a whole would be able to shoulder the responsibilities that would come with marriage. Its not to say that the straight community had it a 100% but my examples in my life, i.e. my grandparents were married for 50-60 years and a lot of those years were not roses, but they stayed together. I think often that when gay people come out they hit another “puberty” stage where everything is new and exciting, experimental, etc and then somehow mature. i have had a fiance for 4 years. We have had our ups and downs and still we want to get married. I am excited and grateful to be present in a time where I will be recognized in a “legitimate” relationship. Perhaps, I have grown a little cynical as I get older to think that this new found equality is going to have a bumpy beginning, but I am deeply grateful that we actually have this chance. We all have to start somewhere. Thank you for sharing!
so beautifully written! I’ve been an activist a very long time about this even though I am heterosexual (started in my late teens and I’m now in my mid forties). a beautiful friend of mine was one of the first women married way back when some West coast states passed their first laws to allow gay marriage. unfortunately it fell apart for many of the reasons stated in your editorial. she was so discouraged she left “lesbianism” and married a man to escape all the self inflicted hurt she saw happening in her community. but she will always identify as lesbian (to her husband’s dismay). and of course she will always remain an activist for equality. she felt the only way LGBT folk could possibly get past their need to be as self destructive as the bigots say they are, is to get equality. acceptance is a powerful thing. here’s to acceptance!
As one of those 50% of straight people who have entered and subsequently left a failed marriage, I would like to offer a little bit of perspective on the matter: even failed marriage usually last longer than non-marital relationships. The average marriage lasts 8 years, whereas the average non-marital romance lasts 2 1/2 years. On a personal level, I think that trying to make a marriage work taught me something about intentionality: my marriage lasted 6 1/2 years, and my current relationship with my fiance has lasted 4 1/2 years so far, making it the longest relationship besides my marriage. Before I was married, my relationships tended to last an average of 1 1/2 years. I think being married represents the intention to stay together, and you do try harder to make it work, even though you may not always succeed.
Really Sumiko..I have been with the same man for 22 years we raised my son together and he is now off on his own and my partner and I are still together.
I have several friends who have celbrated well over 20 years together. A piece of paper doesn’t tell any of us who we love or how long it should last. I do agree with you though. If two people make the decision to get married they should be sure that they are willing to make that lifelong committment. Too many people get married and divorced over and over again. Why…I do not know. Impulse control I imagine. But for me, if I choose to get married to my partner, it won’t be becuse the state tells me I can, iut will be because of the love we have invested in each other for over 22 years. But I do not think being married will make things any more the committment than we have already made to each other.
There was a great New Yorker cover years ago, the view from New York. In a similar manner this essay makes me think of a view from WeHo. All the things you hope to begin happening have already happened all over the place, where mature gay couples live and have been married for years, and have already figured out not only the last-name thing but also what not to monogram. I think the “us” and “our” and “we” of this essay sound general but are really too narrow, as a lot of LGBT people have been living in the very maturity you seek. As so many have noted before, the “LGBT community” is just a phrase that cannot compass a very diverse group of different people, some of whom are of course juvenile, but many are already living in the responsible place this essay envisions, in a first-class way, and whose sexuality hasn’t been “furtive and fearful” since the 1970’s. 😉
“Without the right, gay people have not had the opportunity to mature as a society.” —- Doesn’t this presumes there is -a- gay society? There are many, and many haven’t given a tinker’s damn what other societies have felt about them and went ahead and matured anyway. Just like your parents, there are countless examples in the world that have already shown the way.(And yes, it is high time more people respected their elders in the U.S., a point I totally agree with.)
“Our mating practices and rituals are stunted, juvenile and unevolved.” —- You have been hanging around Jordan Ampersand way too much. 😉 Besides, the use of “mating” seems to indicate a desire to breed, not something every gay couple desires, not at all. Rather than a single, small group of practices and rituals, there is an entire world of them, many of which are full-grown, adult and very evolved.
Many of the “us” long ago accepted equal responsibility on par with our non-gay peers and work daily, often very hard, at what it takes not only to make a marriage work but also to make it thrive, bloom and be a good example for anyone that cares to look. What is a brand new day for some is an older reality for others.
All that being said, I really enjoyed this essay as it is just the type of discussion I hope more people start having. All us humans are so much more alike than different and society as a whole is having a lot of problems, unstable marriages being one of them. Now that (at least in 13 states) the law regards all marriages as equal, perhaps we (the people, all of us) can start focusing on our commonalities as well as our common shortcomings and talk about what we -all- can do to fix them. I think we’re all up to it, I really do.
Also… your parents have been together 125 years? I should have known you came from a long line of vampires.
Very insightful, particularly the last two large paragraphs.
my gmail account has placed your messages, eric, to me into a social account. i never go there because i’m not social. and all this time i thought you divorced me, eric. i thought you flat out dropped me. glad to know it was gmail doing the rejecting and not anyone else. which brings me to…. marriage. i think sumiko has a great point that even with failed marriages they tend to be four times as long in length as non-marriage relationships and the experience has much to teach us. and yes, m.d., we gay people are so used to causal sex, even anonymous glory holes, in all their glory, that many gay people think dinner before sex is a committed relationship. david, i am glad and proud of your long-term relationship, but i question if you live in a big city or out of the south. the south always seems to nest better, longer, and to greater effect. i, too, know of long-term gay relationships without marriage, one being the longest relationship of any others i know, gay or straight, but those are nowhere near the number that straight people have. and of the very long-term gay marriages i do know of many seem to be rather open, from time to time and not the strongest pillars of fidelity. but if it mutual, who am to complain about what works. and maybe that is why those marriages work better and make for very long-term relationships. but having the institutional and financial supports of marriage in place definitely helps even that much more, which is why we have fought so hard for it. i think marriage is a long-term stabilizer from everything i can see. thank you, eric, for the great article.