All over the news and all over the world people are talking about America and the fight for gay rights and equality. I hate it. I spent a fair portion of my life being married and allowed to be an out heterosexual wife. Truth be told, I was never forced into a closet. Heterosexuals never are. When I was 19, I walked with my fiancé into a courthouse and applied for a marriage license and then on Aug 2, 1999 I got married. It was beautiful, simple, and I didn’t even really think about it. I certainly wasn't met by picketers assaulting me with blind, uneducated hatred.
We started reaping the federal benefits effective the day we were married and then, after each subsequent child, we received more benefits and the sick thing is, I felt like we were entitled to those benefits.
At 19, I wasn’t even aware of what homosexuality really was. I didn't really know that people were dying/had died. People have always just been people to me. I thank a phenomenally human mother for that. I certainly didn’t think I was gay. I never considered that there were citizens of the USA that were considered less. Maybe in my sheltered, cozy Montana life, I assumed that the civil rights movement was over and that everyone was equal…I mean all different races and sexes served in the military, races intermarried, and women held high level corporate positions? Surely that meant all Americans were being treated equally? I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I was and in many ways still am a highly uninformed individual. The things I know now would have shocked that cozy housewife I had so easily become. Women make significantly less money than men, races other than white are still a largely underrepresented minority in most workplaces and those that are represented are paid statistically different wages than the white males that occupy similar positions. Only recently have homosexuals been protected under federal discrimination laws and our transgender family are not protected at all in most states. Hate crimes are rising, homosexual children are committing suicide at enormous rates (really, is it surprising that life seems unlivable when one of the elements that make you who you are is constantly under attack?) Where are our protections?
I divorced my husband in 2008. I left because I was gay and because I was miserably unhappy living the life that we had. The 19 year old who thought her life it was paradise grew into the 28 year old, lesbian who couldn’t pretend that it was what she wanted it to be anymore. Little did I know that walking out of heterosexuality and into homosexuality didn’t just involve changing the gender of my partners. It involved politics and a whole world of people who all of a sudden hated me and thought I was an abomination.
There are people picketing military funerals and saying deaths in wartime are justified because the USA has gay soldiers. There are politicians saying that the gay soldiers that serve our country can’t be out and shouldn’t even be allowed to serve. Our own federal government won’t allow us to be married….but wait…
I don’t care that gays can’t marry and be federally recognized. I don’t. It’s that simple. I. just. don’t. care.
What I care about is that ANYONE can marry and receive a financial benefit for doing something that is basic and biological. It makes me mad that any group is singled out above any other. Since when does who I love need any government involvement? Would a straight woman love her husband any less if they didn’t get to file a married federal tax return every spring? Would the commitment a man feels to his spouse of 60 years be any less without a court document stating they are married? Is my love for my girlfriend invalidated because we can’t walk into a courthouse and have Big Brother validate it for us? No.
So why does the homosexual community care? Because society cares and society impacts our day to day lives. That’s why. Society decided and gave government the right to recognize something that is solely between two people (or two people and whichever God they worship) and to give benefits to said people based on that recognition and subsequently denying them to people who aren’t recognized. Society gave insurance rights, federal tax rights, inheritance rights, and the protections incorporated into those rights to one set of people...heterosexuals. If all of us had the same rights, no one would be marching about rights.
My not caring does not mean I am turning my back on the gay population and siding with the Republicans and right wingers who say we don’t deserve rights and that all social programs should be shut down, quite the opposite.
I think that United We Stand, Divided We Fall is a very important phrase. I don’t think anyone should get benefits for being married or having children. I believe that everyone should have the same access to wealth, provisions, growth, healthcare, and education. In the long run this will only serve to benefit our nation to allow access to these things. We will be healthier, smarter, and richer.
Unfortunately, we have to get ourselves out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into with all this intense governance or changing will be impossible. That is where the focus of politics should be, fixing the mess that we allowed them to get us into so that one day, we can be a better stronger nation. We voted them into office, this is our fault too.
Someday, I want to marry my partner. I don't want to receive benefits for it. I actually think that the benefits cheapen it. I want to look at her and make a spoken commitment with the people we care about around us. I don't need Big Brother to tell me I am married and give me money as a reward. I will know I am married and so will she and so will those we hold dear enough to want them to share that with us.
We started reaping the federal benefits effective the day we were married and then, after each subsequent child, we received more benefits and the sick thing is, I felt like we were entitled to those benefits.
At 19, I wasn’t even aware of what homosexuality really was. I didn't really know that people were dying/had died. People have always just been people to me. I thank a phenomenally human mother for that. I certainly didn’t think I was gay. I never considered that there were citizens of the USA that were considered less. Maybe in my sheltered, cozy Montana life, I assumed that the civil rights movement was over and that everyone was equal…I mean all different races and sexes served in the military, races intermarried, and women held high level corporate positions? Surely that meant all Americans were being treated equally? I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I was and in many ways still am a highly uninformed individual. The things I know now would have shocked that cozy housewife I had so easily become. Women make significantly less money than men, races other than white are still a largely underrepresented minority in most workplaces and those that are represented are paid statistically different wages than the white males that occupy similar positions. Only recently have homosexuals been protected under federal discrimination laws and our transgender family are not protected at all in most states. Hate crimes are rising, homosexual children are committing suicide at enormous rates (really, is it surprising that life seems unlivable when one of the elements that make you who you are is constantly under attack?) Where are our protections?
I divorced my husband in 2008. I left because I was gay and because I was miserably unhappy living the life that we had. The 19 year old who thought her life it was paradise grew into the 28 year old, lesbian who couldn’t pretend that it was what she wanted it to be anymore. Little did I know that walking out of heterosexuality and into homosexuality didn’t just involve changing the gender of my partners. It involved politics and a whole world of people who all of a sudden hated me and thought I was an abomination.
There are people picketing military funerals and saying deaths in wartime are justified because the USA has gay soldiers. There are politicians saying that the gay soldiers that serve our country can’t be out and shouldn’t even be allowed to serve. Our own federal government won’t allow us to be married….but wait…
I don’t care that gays can’t marry and be federally recognized. I don’t. It’s that simple. I. just. don’t. care.
What I care about is that ANYONE can marry and receive a financial benefit for doing something that is basic and biological. It makes me mad that any group is singled out above any other. Since when does who I love need any government involvement? Would a straight woman love her husband any less if they didn’t get to file a married federal tax return every spring? Would the commitment a man feels to his spouse of 60 years be any less without a court document stating they are married? Is my love for my girlfriend invalidated because we can’t walk into a courthouse and have Big Brother validate it for us? No.
So why does the homosexual community care? Because society cares and society impacts our day to day lives. That’s why. Society decided and gave government the right to recognize something that is solely between two people (or two people and whichever God they worship) and to give benefits to said people based on that recognition and subsequently denying them to people who aren’t recognized. Society gave insurance rights, federal tax rights, inheritance rights, and the protections incorporated into those rights to one set of people...heterosexuals. If all of us had the same rights, no one would be marching about rights.
My not caring does not mean I am turning my back on the gay population and siding with the Republicans and right wingers who say we don’t deserve rights and that all social programs should be shut down, quite the opposite.
I think that United We Stand, Divided We Fall is a very important phrase. I don’t think anyone should get benefits for being married or having children. I believe that everyone should have the same access to wealth, provisions, growth, healthcare, and education. In the long run this will only serve to benefit our nation to allow access to these things. We will be healthier, smarter, and richer.
Unfortunately, we have to get ourselves out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into with all this intense governance or changing will be impossible. That is where the focus of politics should be, fixing the mess that we allowed them to get us into so that one day, we can be a better stronger nation. We voted them into office, this is our fault too.
Someday, I want to marry my partner. I don't want to receive benefits for it. I actually think that the benefits cheapen it. I want to look at her and make a spoken commitment with the people we care about around us. I don't need Big Brother to tell me I am married and give me money as a reward. I will know I am married and so will she and so will those we hold dear enough to want them to share that with us.
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