You can be happy or right. I'll chose happy.

There has been an influx of wedding announcements to come through my email and my snail mail in the past few weeks… at least 3 friends and 3 family members are getting married this year. I am elated, no, ecstatic for each and every one of them. I wish them the very best in their lives with their significant others. I am especially looking forward to seeing my beautiful baby sister getting married next April; she will be so happy, and that makes me happy.

To say that the topic of marriage has been in the news a great deal lately, would be an understatement. Interracial marriages are more common in Malaysia, marriages to in laws and quickie divorces were legalized in Scotland, California is facing a challenge to gay marriages in federal court, Ottawa legislators just proposed legalising gay marriages to “ensure that these minority rights are uniform across the country”. So, what does one make of all this marriage talk? I cannot get married; at least I cannot get married to the person I want to.


Maybe the question is, do I want to get married?

Perhaps I could write off marriage as an archaic institution that keeps people in an ordered and monogamous setting that keeps a certain social order and allows for a proliferation of future generations (who will remain in that order). Much like the belief in a god who punishes the sinful served as a primitive legal system.

However, if I do that, am I devaluing that sacred institution or bond that so many of my family and friends are partaking in, to symbolize the great and everlasting love that they feel for their partners?

Argument: If gays were allowed to marry, perhaps the divorce rate would decline. If you consider that a percentage of divorces are due to the fact that either the man or the women is gay and comes out after marriage to seek a same sex partner, allowing gays to marry might prevent them from entering into a union just to be in the cultural norm. There’s one thought.

Argument: If rights were granted equally to all persons (regarding the marriage rights one earns surrounding property, inheritance, finances, etc) societies in their countries not be better off? If absolute equality existed, can we have advances in technologies (from, the sometimes selfish and money hungry people who trample on others rights to invent/create/grow their products), inspiration (from the suffering from injustices of the world) wouldn’t lead to great art, and the list is seemingly endless. There’s another thought.

In Scotland, the government recently passed a law that “will reduce the time needed to conclude a divorce, give unmarried fathers new rights over their children and give unmarried couples some of the same rights as married couples”. I guess that is a step in the right direction if I were to remain unmarried, and wanted some of the same rights. But, from my second argument, perhaps I don’t want those same rights. Perhaps in my anger and frustration and shear disappointment in millions of people in the world, specifically America, especially Alabama and Virginia today, I will some day write a best selling novel on orientation injustice and open the eyes to millions on why gay marriage will not be the downfall to the social system we know. Or, perhaps I will die an unhappy and unfulfilled life because I bought into the reality/myth the marriage = good, secure, healthy and normal life and I was never given the chance to enjoy it.