Like multi-colored lights, themed ornaments, and glass balls, the decorations on the tree serve no real function without the tree. The tree gives them a foundation; a purpose for their collective pretty display. Without the tree, the decorations are but random spots of pretty on the ground.
Same is true of marriage. Without the legal foundation of a marriage, a wedding is but so much pretty stuff cast on the floor of a church, a reception hall, or another building. The ceremony is secondary to every part of marriage. In our modern age, marriage is a legal construct that protects love, family, and property. The love...The wedding...And the rest are merely incidental to the legality of the wedding. It protects those things, it is not those things in and of itself.
Having just celebrated our 15 year anniversary, we are often asked "Why don't you go to Massachusetts and get married?"
The answer to this seems so simple to me.
Why would we?
I don't need a ceremony to celebrate a love that is so solid to both of us, and everyone in our lives?! I will have a ceremony to celebrate our love when it is fully and equally protected under the law. At that time, when a wedding will have significance for the two of us, and all that love us...At that time, we will have something to celebrate.
Anything before seems redundant to us.
Our love and our relationship doesn't need a party or a ceremony to be solid and proven before the world. What we need are the 1,138+ legal rights and responsibilities that are granted with a marriage licence in the United States of America.
I don't need a preacher, a justice of the peace, or a Rabbi.
I need an attorney, a judge, and a legally sound future.
I need to know that like any other married couple, if something happens to me, he is protected and treated equally under the law. Many ill-advised people tell us to write wills to do that, but what the ignorantly don't understand, is that courts see blood as thinker than gay relationships and if a family member challenges a will, they virtually always win in a court of law. And this speaks nothing to the states, like Virginia, that have ruled any legal document that tries to "mimic the protections of marriage" invalid. So in states like Virginia and Ohio, even if you hired the best lawyer money could buy, any document drawn up would be legally made invalid if it tried to recreate or substantially mimic the legal protections of marriage.
Then there is the portability issue.
No married heterosexual couple ever need worry about the validity of their marriage (performed in Massachusetts) while they are in vacation in Virginia. Again, a wedding ceremony, and a marriage license in MA are only valid there for gay and lesbian couples. So why would a couple from PA travel there to get a symbolic marriage that carries no legal protection or rights? I know many do just that, and I do think it's wonderful, but for me its such a hollow victory.
I need federally sanctioned and equally provided protection that crosses state lines, and offers us the guarantee that a hospital will allow us access and the power to make decisions for the other without question or prejudice. Again, people will suggest lawyers and papers to do this. Why do I need that, when for a simple marriage license (20 bucks in most states) I get all those protections. They are portable. They are equal. They are what America is supposed to be about. Instead, opponents will suggest solutions that are unfairly expensive and offer no guarantee of protection of life, love, property, or the relationship.
When we can have all those things...Then we will get married! Then we will have a reason to have an extra and public celebration of our relationship.
Anything before that is just a party, filled with pretty things that have no tree to hang on.