So why do so many gay people want to come onboard?
The answer is simple—it’s not cool to tell people they can’t come onboard.
Our history is fraught with discrimination. For decades it was “You can’t sit there,” “You can’t eat there,” “You can’t own this,” and basically—if you are [insert certain race, class, sex here], you can’t do this, period. Thank God we have moved past a lot of that, but unfortunately, discrimination is as strong in our country as our first amendment rights. Sure, things are “better,” but the plight of gay people has not come as far as you might think.
Did you know that federal hate crime laws don’t include gay people? Did you know that if a gay man’s lover dies, the family of the deceased has all the legal rights to his estate, even if his family had disowned him? Did you know that the family can prevent a woman from seeing her lover of ten years in the hospital? Did you know that being gay is still a crime punishable by DEATH in many countries? Gay people do not have equal parenting rights. They are denied housing and have no legal recourse because they aren’t protected. The list goes on and on.
Check this out: in any marriage, a husband can leave his wife a billion dollars in his will, and vice versa, without paying an estate tax. But if I wanted to leave my estate to my partner, she will have to pay a 50 percent estate tax—50 percent! The law states that unless partners have a legal union, the estate tax applies. So not fair.
Marriage automatically guarantees many of the things described above. Securing gay marriage secures equality, and so, understandably, many gay people want it. Who doesn’t want to be treated equally?
The argument on the other side is that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. So what? Words change just like everything else in this world, and some words have multiple and, many times, opposite meanings. That argument is weak and doesn’t convince me (and remember, I don’t even want to get married). Webster’s has included “D’oh,” in the dictionary now, and that’s from a cartoon character. “Google” is a freaking verb now! “Bad” can actually mean good. I can screw all night (a good thing) or be screwed by estate taxes (a bad thing). The other day, a teenager told me my necklace was “sick,” and I am pretty sure he liked it. But somehow the word marriage is immune from opening up its ranks a bit? No, sorry—not buying it.
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