I read a lot of blogs. Too many are the ones that reinforce exactly what I believe already. Some are about subjects I don’t know much about. Others take a different viewpoint from my own. Some of those bloggers have even managed to change my stubborn mind on issues over the years. They’re my favourites.

Suzy Byrne (of Maman Poulet and Anti-Room) is one of them.

This week, she has laid out her reasons behind her objection to the campaign for gay marriage. I’ll spoil the ending right now: this is not one of the times she’s changed my mind. Still, I’d like to address her objections.

Marriage has not been a friend to women throughout the years. From Suzy’s Irish perspective:

Marriage has previously barred women from employment, excluded us from claiming social welfare, participation in FAS schemes, a reason for being paid less, and a host of other rights and entitlements. Those who did not marry were castigated as a drain on the state, as not behaving appropriately, they also do not get the same rights to protection in cases of domestic violence.  Marriage was considered permission for rape until the early 90′s.
Maman Poulet

For all the reasons she’s listed and more, marriage has historically sucked. But then, so have so many things. Employment has sucked. A hundred years ago, working conditions were awful. My mining ancestors died of lung disease, leaving their wives and children in debt to the company that killed their husbands and fathers through greed, neglect and apathy. Universities were, for the bulk of history, the realm of only privileged and religious men. Add democracy for the same reasons. None of these are reasons to relegate higher education, democracy or employment to history. Nor is the history of marriage enough to resign marriage to the scrap heap.

It wasn’t voting, education or employment or marriage that excluded and subjugated women. Women were already excluded, subjugated and considered to be the possessions of men. Marriage, education and employment followed the whims of those who have power in society. As the world changes, these change. In Ireland, the control for so many years has belonged to the church. Threats of excommunication have been commonplace political maneuvers. Years and years of indoctrination (sometimes called “education”) meant that those threats were not laughed off as any rational person would today.

There are many “friendly-fire” arguments against same-sex marriage. (I blogged about some of them in January) Why legally restrict your affections to only one person? Why participate in a largely economic institution when our economic system is so clearly there to reward the wealthy and punish the poor? If you disagree with the dominant culture, don’t participate in it.

Sadly these queer arguments rely on the concept of a supporting community that can compensate for the lack of equality in people’s lives. Unforunately, those communities are usually urban.

When the city first started issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples, San Francisco-based Annalee Newitz wrote,

I understand, from a utilitarian point of view, why same-sex couples want to have state-recognized relationships. Hospital visitation rights, inheritance, co-ownership of property, and parenting are all absurdly difficult for unmarried couples. But marriage isn’t merely about kids and taxes.
Annalee Newitz

But it is. I see above a list of reasons I got married in the first place. You can add, “becaue I’m in love and we both wanted to.” to that list as well, but otherwise, it’s pretty exhaustive.

Suzy runs down the potential implications of the Civil Partnership, etc legislation:

The impact of civil partnership and cohabitation legislation inferring rights and responsibilities on relationships is untested and far-reaching.  The Department of Social Protection will soon be able to infer that people in same sex relationships living together are co-habiting, sharing incomes and responsible financially for each other whether they want to be or not.  Many people may not want that to happen (including because they don’t want to be open to financial abuse or control by a partner)  but that’s one legacy of ‘equality’.

That has nothing to do with equality (with or without the quotes). I detest that the government can decide whether or not I am in a valid relationship. I’ve made that decision myself. I stood up, made a declaration to my wife under the law, signed the papers and posed for the silly photos. If I had not made that decision, I would not expect to be held to any kind of obligation. Also, the Civil Partnership, etc Bill is a far cry from equality. If anything, it has codified inequality and made discrimination against gay and lesbian people acceptable in the law. Marriage equality would have gained for us more and cost us less of our liberty.

I can’t imagine anyone in the gay community believes that marriage is the only way to be a family. I’m not interested in enforcing a particular way of being in a relationship. I wish that kinship did not have to be defined by the state. I wish that we who are “unmarried” were not at an economic disadvantage. I wish marriage could apply to many different family structures. I wish, I wish, I wish.

For the moment, what we have is this: we have a gay person in the hospital who must rely on the kindness of strangers in order to have those daily visits from her partner and children. We have partners are left grieving, homeless, broke, and without access to the children they raised. We have children who can lose two parents through a single death. There is one very quick way to fix that, and it is to grant marriage equality to all couples. A quick fix may not satisfy some, but it can help.

Will lesbians and gay men who choose not to enter into civil partnerships be seen as ‘loose’, a drain on the state, ‘behaving inappropriately’?  Will Paddy Power give me odds on this?  I bet not because I predict within 3 years there will be articles and debates appearing about lesbians and gay men who are ‘not the marrying kind’, refusing to commit,  castigating them as refuseniks.  Civil Partnerships will be seen as status symbols and indicators of success.  And the campaign for marriage will continue because the quest for ‘normality’ dressed up as equality will persist.
Maman Poulet

and

But the rest of us could build our own kinds of relationships, ones that suited us, without feeling we’d somehow failed to live up to the expectations of our community. What expectations were there? All we had, in the words of fantasy writer Jacqueline Carey, was the commandment “Love as thou wilt.”

[...]

Now that queers can get married, I’m left here with a diminishing group of sexual outcasts and minorities, dreaming about a world where kinship isn’t codified by the state. Although we love each other in profoundly human ways, pundits compare us to people who want to marry their pets or cars. We’re the perverse remainder, the sexually unassimilated. But we soldier on; we blunder toward romantic fulfillment, and we find it or we don’t. In true love, there are no laws. And there are none to break.
Annalee Newitz

I didn’t marry because I felt pressure to. Nor should anyone. When I came out to my family, I discarded expectation as a reason for doing anything. I highly recommend it.

I married for the same reason I dress the way I dress and speak the way I speak — because it is who I am, and what I choose. I have every right to chose that. Others should have every right to ignore it, but that should be their choice. At the moment, those arguing against same-sex marriage are effectively turning down something nobody has ever offered them.

We need equality. Then we can all work together to make that equality more meaningful. But until we’re there, what’s the point?

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