I Now Declare You Hus.. I Mean Wife And Wife: Thoughts On Same-Sex Marriage

My friend got married in November. It was like many other weddings, big white dress, cake, lots of relatives and friends all gathered to celebrate two people in love making a commitment. Everyone dressed up, everyone bought presents. We danced, we ate, we had fun. 

It was the first (and so far only wedding) I had the pleasure of attending. My friend Ness looked beautiful and so did her bride. Her bride you may ask, yes, her bride. Not only was this my first wedding but also my first ‘gay’ (or shall we say same-sex?) wedding. 


Those who know me well are aware of the fact that I have a good group of gay and lesbian friends. Some of the people I treasure most in my life are gay. I wrote my undergrad and postgrad thesis (all 3 of them) on topics in and around gay and lesbian studies – lesbian mothers being my speciality. I was lucky enough to work with some incredible women while doing my Masters and I was incredibly proud of being able to tell their stories in an academic way to an academic audience. And even though the topic of me writing about lesbian mothers caused many heated discussions over dinner with my family, there was never a sense of rejection in either my family or circle of friends.

Not until the wedding that is. I tweeted a picture saying congratulations to the newlywed couple and within the span of a couple of minutes a (now former) friend tweeted how she and her boyfriend thought that it was a shame that two beautiful women like that were getting married to each other rather than men. Because I had never experienced homophobia towards my direct circle of friends, rather than just in the news, I felt that it was not only an attack on my friends but to a certain extend on me. 

I am very protective of my friends at the best of times, but particularly when they are being criticised for being themselves, in this case, being out and proud. Ness and I have been friends since we were 11 and even though we had our bad patches we remain close friends to this day. My teenage life would have been very different without her. It would have been a lot less colourful. I was one of the first people she ‘came out’ to and to this day it makes me proud that she trusted me enough to tell me. 

All the while every little step western, developed society is making towards improving gay rights and normalizing issues like same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian parents, makes me happy. The more we look at these kind of relationships and families as ‘normal’ (in the heteronormative sense of the word!) the easier it will be for future generations to be accepting of, not only LGBT individuals, but others in general Or at least I would like to think. 

That is why it is so great to see so many big name brands contributing towards normalizing how we see same-sex couples, particularly while the US is still in battle with itself over Proposition 8. The most recent ad campaign containing a same-sex couple comes to us straight from IT giant Microsoft, following in Amazon’s footsteps who released an ad with a gay couple in October 2012. It might be a small thing in the grand scheme of things but baby steps will still take us in the right direction. It makes up for the homophobes coming up with ridiculous explanations why same-sex couples cannot be married, like this lovely fellow by the name of Mike Frey, speaking in front of the Minnesota court on the topic of same-sex marriage. It is other small tokens like this viral video of Daniel Martinez-Leffew, who lives in northern California with his dads Bryan and Jay, urging Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to strike down Prop 8 and embrace gay marriage.

 

Hendrik Hertzberg, famously said ““Marriage should be between a spouse and a spouse, not a gender and a gender” and I cannot disagree with him. Getting married or having a family should not being about whether you are gay, straight or transsexual. It should be about wanting to make a commitment to someone, to something. It is beautiful to see that two people still want to make a commitment like that to each other. In times when it is being all about not committing to anything, casual sex is considered normal, people play games for fun and things falling apart as soon as they become work, it is empowering to see that not all is lost. Ness and her wife are a great example of the power of love and I could not be happier for them if I tried.