Today's marriage is now a watered-down version of its original intent. Couples marry for love, some produce children, some do not, and many detach from one another through another word we call "divorce." Yet, over our time here, marriage has been fused, or confused, with modern religious ceremony, where you can be blessed by your deity as long as you fit the description of "man" and "woman." Multi-billions now, people...
You see, I do not believe that restrictively defining marriage is unconstitutional, because it is too deeply associated with religious blessings, blessings that are a dime a dozen. If we have a beef and debate with denominational interpretations of religious texts that shoot poison darts at us, then by all means let's get down to it and take a stand for the societal-religious view of our morality. But, if we're just fighting for a word here... we want so much to be like our parents (shout out to you, my single parent and LGBT-parent friends, but I'm talking about the nuclear family here) and our straight-couple peers, we're blinded by the smoke screen the opposite side has created. Those who oppose our kind put up their bishop Chess piece called marriage as a diversion, when it is the rook called equality we should be going directly after. This fight on the word marriage is a trap and ambush. Beware, for it is not that word we care about; it is the foundational right to publicly announce and display our love through ceremony and decree, the right to declare two have become one, therefore all ownings become combined, therefore rights of survivorship are automatic and undeniable, and we have the right to publically suffer and participate in the loss of your other half from this planet.
"Marriage" is the smokescreen hiding the fountain "equality" which provides the fluid "family." If we are nationally equal, then we may call our unions, and the children and pets extended from those unions, "family." We may adopt out, or use our working parts with carefully chosen opposite genders in old-school or science-lab style, allowing us to do anything "they" can do.
In order to stay on the board, we must continue to remind our national government of its obligation to not lay in bed with the church, any church, or a certain smell of the Air of Old will become noticeable in its halls. It doesn't matter if a certain umbrella religion is the dominant one here. I didn't "choose" to live here, I was born here, and being born here doesn't obligate me to live by said dominant religion, only to live by the laws. Being born here, in the United States of America, grants me the right to say these things and the right to participant in the changing of law, which begins with the changing of perceptions of the majority who vote.
If we want our peers and parents to take us seriously, we need to take ourselves seriously. Take a look at the majority of media news reporting of a gay pride parades, and you'll know what I am conveying without actually saying it. We are a colorful rainbow, but we need for the cameras to stop zooming in on the bright flashes of color and to zoom out on our combined white light.
What we want is for our states and our country to declare that every adult human has a right to romantically, sexually and consensually love another, regardless of the gender, that we are not stains on the pristine white walls, but rather many fine notes in the murals and songs, and to join in the right to some form of societal, ritualistic, ceremonial announcement of our union in love. And then, what we want is to send our joint finances into the economy to buy things like a home, to adopt the child of our civil spouse, to adopt a child from some third-world country, to be the first emergency contact by law, and to have first rights of survival ownership in absence of a will.
Some of us really wouldn't mind keeping the tradition of the little golden ring, but it does not have to do anything with "marriage." It is a ring, it goes on a finger, and it symbolizes a willing of oneself to another, forever. It can be utilized without the permission of anyone but you and your love, and it can be utilized in words that I am totally fine with: "civil union." As long as my state and country say it's cool and I get the same rights, then I'm on board with "marriage" being defined for men and women only, for it is now an expendable word that old-world religion has chosen to put lipstick on and send out into the public as a decoy, while it clings to and keeps "equality" and "family" with its very old, dusty and frail hands as long as it can.
If we hang tight, if we agree our goal is to gain the rights of state and country-sponsored civil unions and lessen up our interest in the word "marriage" and its institutional ties, if we show respect for ourselves and our loving relationships, if we do indeed want to and can conform on some level, for we want the same rights the others have, and as long as the massive majority of humanity continues to have no interest in marrying a horse, sheep, pig, dog or (insert animal species of humorous choice here), then we'll be just fine in the new, equalized world.
