In December 2019 I finally married my longtime life-partner. The whole event was a beautiful exercise in bureaucratic necessity.  Both sets of parents insisted on attending the momentous occasion, but I feel like it was only momentous for them. My partner and I kind of felt like it was like having party for filing your taxes on time. We had a good time, it was nice to catch up with everyone, but it was just a bit weird. It turns out I’m not the only one that feels this way. When the topic of marriage came up over the next several weeks I found that many of my friends feel the same way. Marriage is just a bit of paperwork that needs to be dealt with before we move on with our lives. Of course, the older and more heteronormative the couple, the more likely they were to view marriage as this monumental, life changing event. The whole situation forced me to think, “when did this change in viewpoints occur?” Specifically in me, because I remember being raised to think marriage was this sacred, impervious cornerstone of society, and at some point I just decided it wasn’t.

I think, for me at least, the erosion of the idea of marriage started in the mid 2000’s, when multiple states (Of the United States of America) started trying to legalize gay marriage (or “marriage” as it’s known now). In response all the crazies crawled out from under their rocks and started thumping their bibles to show their displeasure. “They’re ruining the sanctity of marriage!” or, “They’re defiling this sacred institution,” the bible thumpers cried out. And they’re still basically yelling the same things over and over. Alright, cool. Let’s go ahead and assume the crazies actually are correct and see how this plays out?

Of course the first thing we’re going to do is define our terms. Veteran readers of my blog know how important it is to define our terms. In this case we need to define ‘marriage’ and I’m going with the opposition’s definition of marriage. Marriage is a sacred bond between a man and woman, as ordained by God, to represent their undying love and lifelong commitment to each other. Fantastic. Which God? I know everyone talks about “the one true God” but last I checked there’s still a lot of wars being fought over who that actually is. Hell, even the more peaceful Christian sects can’t seem to agree on what He is actually saying in The Bible. But again, that’s a different debate for a different time, for the sake of showing you my thought process back in the early 2000’s we’re going to assume the crazy, sociopathic, gaslighting asshole that the alt right seems to love so much is the one true god. Personally, I’d have gone with the guy that’s all about forgiveness and acceptance, but you know, freedom of religion and whatnot.

So, if the assumptions (and these are BIG assumptions) are that the opposition’s definition of marriage is the ‘real’ definition and that their strangely emotionally unstable god is the arbiter on whether or not these marriages are ‘legitimate’ are correct; then yes, in fact two people of the same gender getting married is not a real marriage (by the way, what if you’re non-binary?). But, using the same arguments, getting divorced and polygyny are also not legitimate marriages. And before anyone says anything, yes I know both of those things are frowned upon. But that’s my point, the worst divorcees and polygynists get is a frown and a disappointed shake of the head. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are literally beaten to death. It’s really hard to buy into a definition if of something that’s only selectively enforced.

I think my favorite argument against the LGBTQ+ community getting married comes from a certain author who shall remain nameless. He basically argued that same sex marriage dilutes his marriage with his wife. Right. Because you see, I like vanilla cake. But, if anyone doesn’t like vanilla cake it devalues my enjoyment of vanilla cake. Only vanilla cake is a valid cake, as ordained by god, any other cake simply devalues the cake I’ve bought. If your sacred institution is such a cornerstone of a stable society, then I’d think it’d be able to survive a couple of guys putting both their names on the same tax return. Seriously, nothing says something is a divine, unbreakable bond like the knowledge that it’ll be ruined if two people whom you’ve never met, will never interact with, and have literally no effect on your life are allowed to both sign a piece of paper. Or, you know, maybe you hate your spouse and you’re miserable for reasons you’re too arrogant and stubborn to understand. So now, like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, the rest of us have to deal with it.

Even working off the assumptions that the anti-gay community is correct, their argument about marriage completely falls apart under their own actions. And if you’re facing these thoughts and arguments right around the time of your life you’re looking for a long term relationship, it tends to color your view on marriage.

I’ll admit that even then I held out the idea that marriage occupied this magical, untouchable space in our society. Until I brought the idea up to my partner and she asked, “why?” I didn’t have a counter argument. We were already acting like a married couple, why bother to spend the time and money for nothing to fundamentally change? Or if we were expecting change, maybe we should take a look at whether we should be together at all. What finally made her say, ‘yes’ was the annoyance of filling for taxes each year. The convenience of only filling out one set of paperwork when you’re already an effective household is hard too pass up. As a fringe benefit we can both go under the same health insurance policy, saving us a bit of money in the long run.

I’ll confess that the article title is a bit misleading. We did kill the institution of marriage. This generation that’s had to grow up under the hypocrisy of the religious zealots, the community that’s had to watch every other sinful behavior be excused and defended even as we took more than our fair share of licks, we killed marriage. We walked right up to it and saw it was a cardboard cutout held together by duct tape. We found the unread bible stolen from a Motel 6 propping up the cutout, we nudged it aside, and went on our merry way. If anyone feels like propping it up again (and people have, they’ve argued it never fell, and that it’s not cardboard, and it’s a pillar holding our whole society up, etc) then go ahead, you’re allowed. But we’re allowed to ignore your crazy, hypocritical rantings.