filed in Myths and stereotypes
A Toast to UnMarriage People
Last Friday, I was overflowing with such joy and gratitude that I didn’t want to ruin the buzz to focus on Justice Kennedy’s opinion. But it’s a new week. Here’s an excerpt:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
A few parts really chafe:
No union is more profound…
In forming a union, 2 people become something greater than once they were…
Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness….
One of my favorite tweets from Friday was from a gay friend, who immediately after the ruling wrote, “OMG, I’m an old maid in 50 states.” I say, welcome to the club, filled with multilayered members (some may just be passing through) who have robust lives full of love, good works, family and union. No matter the bias, FPS community, let’s continue to own our single truth.
New Yorker cartoon by Tom Toro
Discussion
31 comments for “A Toast to UnMarriage People”
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As the divorce rate for heterosexual people is quite high (40 – 50%), and would be higher if it was not so costly I can only see allowing homosexuals to marry will just mean more money for solicitors …
I think it’s joyous. Though I’m sure divorce will follow for some, as well.
One of my gay friends who is in a committed relationship and hopes to marry some day posted on Facebook that while he was happy about the decision, he doesn’t think it’s right to hold marriage in that celestial light and that all people should be respected and celebrated. Not everyone seeks fulfillment through marriage, he said, and that’s not the endpoint goal for many people. I was really appreciative and told him so! I think the relationship I have with my choir conductor is pretty transcendant and profound…we communicate through music! I wonder how the *single* ladies on the bench, Kagan and Sotomayor, felt while reading that. Hmmm….
Leyla, I didn’t think of Kagan and Sotomayor actually. That’s a very good point. I would say we are in excellent company!
Great point. Amazing company, indeed!
Maybe Kennedy’s opinion was written as a strategic argument for legal purposes. In any case, I take exception with it.
The justices usually write opinions based in the oral arguments they heard and the briefs that the attorneys submitted. They do their own wordsmithing (Scalia for example, likes to act clever), but clearly certain arguments for the tangible and intangible benefits of marriage made an impression on Kennedy and he wanted to run that thought experiment out as far as he could.
I heard one constitutional scholar explain that he was surprised, not by the ruling, but by Kennedy’s framing of it. I’m sure it reflects his world view, but I still wonder if it was tactical.
I was driving when I heard the reading of the Kennedy’s opinion, so I wasn’t even really listening all that hard the first time. And even then, something about it struck me as so disheartening and I immediately felt…something. Sad isn’t quite the word, and not even mad. Just somehow my joy was tempered, even unconsciously. It took me reading it again at home later to realize that the phrase “Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions” was like a dagger to the heart.
I spoke to my gay friend who is my age that day and told him in jest “well, now you can start becoming needlessly and unreasonably harassed about why you’re not married!” We had a good laugh, and I felt better. Sharing his joy helped.
It’s true. Now gay people will have the same pressure to marry. 20 years ago, very few people could’ve imagined that.
I have straight friends in MA who had to get married so that if one of them died their money would go to the other versus their young children. The woman was distraught at the prospect because she hates having the state control her life. So, I’m happy LBGT people have the same rights but as a society we have a long way go.
As more and more people remain single, eventually laws will have to catch up.
Just got posted in the New York Times: The Supreme Court’s Lonely Heart Club: http://goo.gl/hgb14I
Cool, and he made the same point I did about the single women justices. Yay!
Great minds think alike.
I loved this NY Times piece, and have shared it widely. Thank you for posting it and thanks for this wonderful blog!
I appreciate your saying that!!
This is a great article too!
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/06/marriage-equality-is-a-win-for-single-people-too.html
I follow Rebecca Traister’s writings (including on Twitter). She’s so smart. Thanks for sharing the link.
Wendy, thanks for posting this (and yes, I did read the NY Times Op-Ed–the Washington Post also noted this). I posted about this on Facebook so that my married friends could understand that, by virtue of being married, they are privileged. I also questioned some of Kennedy’s words. Fidelilty, my ass. I am still regularly hit on, often by married men. I’d like to know what kind of “fidelity” that is!
Kennedy probably doesn’t get out much.
Thanks for sharing the link to the NYT op-ed. Very well written and thought- provoking indeed.
I’ve never thought about gay people and long-term singleness. It’s not a narrative we often hear with all of the marriage equality discussion of the past several years. So it will be interesting to see gay singles come out of the woodwork and share their experiences.
One of my dearest friends is gay and has been single for about as long as me. We talk about that a lot (over cocktails!) And through the years, he has described the arc, from when it used to be common place in his community to now, when he’s the odd man out.
Thanks for sharing this. You (and the NY Times op-ed writer) have articulated some of my own discomfort…
This feeling must have been bubbling over. That’s why it made it into the Times.
“In forming a union, 2 people become something greater than once they were.”
I am much too spiritual a person to believe this line. I believe that each soul has an assignment and fulfilling that assignment doesn’t require one to marry or enter into an “institution.” Hogwash!
I do hope that our gay brothers and sisters don’t now take on the ridiculous burden of thinking they are somehow incomplete or can’t fulfill their destiny unless they marry.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in the gay community in the coming years.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the gay community in the coming years, indeed. The best news of all is that only now will a dialogue begin.
I believe we find ourselves realizing already (if the gushing commentary published by many gays and lesbians themselves are any indicator) that gays and lesbians have long taken on the ridiculous burden of thinking they are incomplete and unfulfilled unless they are married (and/or have children). So much for progress?
I see it as progress, because now there’s a choice.
I am fine with the RESULT of the Court’s decision, but confess that Justice Kennedy’s rhetoric depressed me. My never-married invisibility is hard to bear at the best of times, and let’s just say this did not help.
In this regard, Justice Kennedy is stuck in the past. On the bright side, there was a lot of pushback on his opinion, even reaching to pages of the NY Times. I don’t think that would’ve happened even 5 years ago.