me around other gays and non-homophobic straight people: actually I think gay marriage is simply a band-aid solution and an empty gesture. Our real focus as a community ought to be homeless and depressed gay youth, especially trans youth.
me around homophobes:
The whole reason marriage equality gained traction was because the AIDS epidemic hit and people’s lovers were prohibited from visiting them in the hospital and were denied access to their estates and were removed from their wills and were having children that they coparented taken away from them. Homeless and depressed gay and trans youth are incredibly important and housing and employment and medical equality – these are all important. But calling gay marriage a band-aid solution and an empty gesture is not only incorrect in a hundred thousand different ways legally, but it’s disrespectful to the entire reason that marriage equality exists which was meant to protect vulnerable members of our community whose partners had died or who were dying themselves.
also like…I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: marriage equality is intimately connected to things like housing (married couples often have an easier time renting than singles!), medical equality (aformentioned issues with people getting to visit their spouses in the hospital etc), child custody, immigration issues, class status, etc etc. Marriage isn’t a “band-aid solution” it’s a step towards equality and better material conditions in many areas of life, some of which can mean life or death to vulnerable LGBT people. The idea that marriage equality is inconsequential to the lives of the most marginalized members of the LGBT community is so clueless I often don’t know how to respond to it. It’s also hard for me not to read this “gay marriage is only for super privileged upper-class people who are removed from the real struggles of marginalized LGBT people” as a direct erasure of/attack on my family, personally.
(i also like the way the rhetoric on this site just calmly segregates off trans gay couples & queer couples of colour all “ONLY WHITE CISGAYS WILL BENEFIT” like you do know that is not how equalising laws works and being able to visit your spouse in hospital is one of those universal needs?)
Yes, honestly – marriage equality is most important for the middle/lower class and the marginalized, because it’s a cheap way to get all the traditional rights of legal partnership (hospital visitation, social security, health insurance, etc.). The rich are the ones who don’t need marriage equality, because they can hire a lawyer to draw up legal documents giving themselves most of the rights, and can afford to make most of the rest irrelevant.
I happen to be in a closed poly triad. We would love to get legally married, but it would be window dressing – we have money, we’ve already ensured that we have most of the legal rights of marriage in place for ourselves. It’s the people without the money and knowledge to do so who need the easy option of marriage.
