On Tuesday 5th February 2013, MPs approved legislation for same-sex marriage in England and Wales.
I am overwhelmingly thrilled by this.
There is argument by those who do not approve that gay and lesbian couples have the right to a civil partnership, and, essentially, “shouldn’t that be enough,” but I absolutely disagree.
Marriage is a strong word. It connotes more than just a legality, but a commitment, a declaration of love. “Civil Partnership” just doesn’t have the same ring. And calling it a different name makes it different—it creates an “us and them.” Why should there be any differences when it comes to love?
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Image via Brighton & Hove News / Photo by Lucky Dog Photography
I read this quote on the BBC website that seemed to sum up exactly how I feel on the matter.
Last week, Mr. T and I checked off a major item on our to-do list: we got our marriage license!
(Name that lyric from that song from that popular musical.)
I need to address something VERY important to me. I need to openly share my feelings in regard to this topic. I need to state that I believe ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY WHOMEVER THEY DAMN WELL PLEASE. Love is the most beautiful, delicate, fascinating, special, soul-building emotion you can experience and it should be celebrated. Always celebrated.
Phew! That felt good. Thanks for listening to me, hive. I know that I am not alone in this sentiment. Bees before have shared similar feelings, and bees before me have shared how all love is not treated equal and how sad things can happen. But even though it was discussed before me and will be talked about after me, until everyone is given the same rights of legal marriage, we need to continue talking about it.
I haven’t talked at all about name changes with you girls, because I’m not doing it. Fiancee Eagle and I have incredibly similar last names (hint: they both end in “son”), so we won’t be hyphenating. We decided fairly early on in our engagement that she would take my last name, as her name doesn’t really matter for her job as much as mine does. I’m really excited about her taking my last name: I’m excited we have that option (very easy to change your last name in Canada – even in a heterosexual marriage the man can change his name to the wife’s very easily), excited that we’ll be linked even more that way… and excited that she so badly wanted to take my name. It makes me feel pretty butch. Yes, that’s right: I feel butch as I sit here in my yellow sundress and full face of makeup. I’m so not butch; but I can pretend.
With that being said, Fiancee Eagle really wants to be “Mrs. Wife Eagle.” She wants to be addressed as a Mrs. She always cutely says we’ll be “Dr. and Mrs. Eagle” (although I won’t be a doctor for four to five more years). I like the way that “Mrs.” distinguishes a female as being married. But…Mrs. is the possessive form of Mr. As in Mrs. means the Mr. owns her.
We have no Mr.
OK, let’s pretend that I’m not biased. (In fact, I’m not, but you might not believe me.) Let’s pretend that my relationship with another woman, Lady T, has nothing to do with my emotions toward same-sex marriage. (Again, it doesn’t, but you might disagree.)
I want to emphasize that these are my opinions. I don’t claim to know it all, to have studied it all, or even to have worked through it all myself. These opinions are based on my personal experience and how I was raised.
I have a fundamental conflict with government controlling the legality of marriage.
I also have an issue with religion dictating that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. Let me repeat, religion.
The Bible, according to some religions the word of God, was written how long ago? Additionally, how many times was it translated JUST in writing? Let’s not even think about how each individual person reads and interprets the meaning behind the words in that book.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not downplaying the importance of the Bible or the words within it, I’m merely suggesting that understanding the book within the context in which it exists is important to consider.
So, one winter night, Lady T kissed me.
It was January 12th.
I was 15 years old. We’d been “watching” Pearl Harbor. (Truth be told, I only ever saw the first half of that movie.)
That kiss changed my life.
For four years after that moment, Lady T and I shared thousands of kisses. She was my first love, my best friend, and my biggest learning experience.
At this point in Lady T’s life, she had a girlfriend—she just didn’t tell me about it. She was ashamed of the way she felt—essentially, like many homosexual people, ashamed of her attraction to women. Because of this, she spent a lot of time lying not only to everyone around her, but also to herself.
I’ve always considered myself to be kind of asexual; I’ve never truly been drawn to one sex over the other, but rather am attracted to certain people. Like I mentioned in my last post, I have a sort of intuition that I tend to follow. Every person I’ve ever loved deeply has been someone that I had an instant attraction to, and those people are not all of the same sex.
Our photography package includes engagement pictures. Our photographer was really trying to make it to California for our e-pics but our schedules didn’t line up. With reality setting in, we realized that we needed to squeeze e-pics into our last Kansas City planning trip.
Thus the hunt for e-pic inspiration began…
Thankfully, one of my friends from college had posted some of her super fabulous engagement pictures on Facebook. Between her pictures and some inspiration from our photographer I was starting to get excited about engagement pics.
Photo by Emily Delamater/Lauren & Katy/posted with permission
One night I was chatting with my good friend Z about same-sex marriage. Z is gay. Our conversation got me thinking about my and Mr. Wizard’s upcoming nuptials and how we could best recognize the fact that we, as two people entering into a “privileged” heterosexual marriage, are able to take this very important and life-changing step in our relationship while some of our closest friends and family cannot do the same.
Between Mr. Wizard and me, we have a lot of friends who are gay. Many of those friends will be guests at our wedding. We simply cannot in good faith stand in front of those people we love and say our vows and parade our so-called privilege in front of them, when inside we are asking ourselves, “What ‘privilege’? What have we done that makes us more ‘worthy’ of marriage than them?” We knew that we had to recognize this disgusting disparity in equality in a public way at the wedding, but without causing undue drama and tension on a day that is supposed to be filled with happiness. We want to be respectful to those with different opinions, but we also want to make it known that we respectfully (well, maybe not so respectfully, but that is neither here nor there) disagree.
There have been many, many recent blog posts, articles, and forum threads about different ways that heterosexual couples are recognizing this issue within their ceremonies and/or receptions. Our very own Mrs. Star wrote about it back in the day. Offbeat Bride has a really great post listing 10 ways to show your support for marriage equality at your wedding. It shares many popular ideas like the white knots for marriage equality:
Image via Offbeat Bride / Photo by Keira Lemonis
Most people love Disneyland — the food, the rides, the souvenirs… did I mention the food? I loved Disneyland as a kid. My family would take one trip a year down to Southern California to visit and go to Disneyland. We had a whole routine down pat, complete with order of rides, when we’d go back to the hotel, and then our late night return to the park.
Since I moved to Los Angeles about eight years ago, I’ve only been to the park three times… and all three times were when I had family members come from out of town. Some of the Disney magic wore off on me over time, I suppose.
But I just got a bunch of love for Disney.
Disneyland will now be offering their Fairytale Wedding package for same-sex couples. This is a huge deal in getting a family-oriented conglomerate on board with supporting same sex couples’ rights (as many companies use “family oriented” to mean “no gays”)!!
So now instead of just seeing this:
According to Female First, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi will be getting married this June!
This makes me really happy–I’m a big fan of Ellen’s show and thought Portia was hilarious on Arrested Development; they’re one of my favorite celebrity couples! I really admire that they keep their private life private, yet everything I’ve read indicates that they’re really great together.
I haven’t done much research on gay/lesbian weddings or commitment ceremonies, but I know that as more states legalize some sort of same-sex union, they’re becoming more popular everyday. That said, and without trying to start a fight:
Though I never really gave it much thought before, the cake topper industry has not exactly gone out on a limb to represent the mixed ethnicity couples of today. Thankfully, a company called Renellie has stepped up to the plate.
To best represent your unique situation, you may choose between eight interchangeable figurines. You can pair a White Groom, Black Groom, Latino Groom or Asian Groom with a White Bride, Black Bride, Latino Bride or Asian Bride. This would also work great for gay couples as you can choose to match brides with brides or grooms with grooms. As you get to choose the two figurines for your own cake topper, you can ensure that it best represents you and your partner as a couple.
