{"id":66,"date":"2012-05-20T18:33:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T17:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sermoa.wordpress.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2012-05-20T18:33:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T17:33:05","slug":"marriage-equality-whats-that-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2012\/05\/marriage-equality-whats-that-then\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage equality \u2013 what\u2019s that, then?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was once told by an immature teenager that my gloves were gay. It wasn’t even my rainbow gloves, which i’d have to admit, yeah, they’re pretty gay!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Even my purple gloves, i’d concede that the kid had a point. No, it was my white and black striped gloves; they’re not even gaily coloured!<\/p>\n

“Your gloves are GAY!”<\/p>\n

So i said, “Oh really? Do you think they are attracted to other gloves of the same gender?”<\/p>\n

To me the term “gay marriage” is as ridiculous a concept as “gay gloves”. Marriage doesn’t have a sexuality. And if you’re trying to say it’s for gay people, no it’s not. It affects bi, trans and straight people too, in all kinds of combinations. What we’re really looking for is an equality of marriage: the same opportunities available to everyone.<\/p>\n

Some examples:<\/p>\n

1. Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle have been trying for nearly two years to get a civil partnership, because they don’t want the historical baggage associated with marriage. They have been denied because of their sexuality: they are both straight.<\/p>\n

2. A friend of mine changed gender and had to get divorced and form a civil partnership instead, in order to achieve gender recognition.<\/p>\n

3. I am bisexual and married to a man. Do we have a straight marriage? If i had wanted to marry a woman, would it be a gay marriage? No, because i am not gay.<\/p>\n

4. Gay people can get married right now! There’s nothing to stop a gay man marrying a gay woman. You might be surprised how often that happens, just for the convenience.<\/p>\n

It bothers me whenever i see the term “gay marriage”. This morning i saw journalists Emma Kennedy and Victoria Coren both use it, so i tweeted:<\/p>\n

\n

your periodic reminder that “marriage equality” is preferable to “gay marriage” .. thank you!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Emma agreed with me, but claimed that on twitter, “gay marriage” is more convenient, to avoid getting hundreds of tweets asking what “marriage equality” means. I didn’t realise that there was so much ignorance. It can’t be that hard to explain, surely? I think that if more journalists and politicians would start using the terms “equal marriage” or “marriage equality” then people would get used to it and understand what it means.<\/p>\n

If we can’t go that far, “same-sex marriage” is at least slightly preferable to “gay marriage” because it’s more descriptive, and it doesn’t exclude bisexual people. It highlights the thing that is currently unequal about marriage. I still don’t like it because it implies that we’re talking about a different, separate thing, when what we actually want is equal access to the same thing.<\/p>\n

One friend suggested that we should call it “Marry Who The Fuck You Want” .. people should be able to grasp that concept! Another friend recommends that we do away with marriage altogether, then we’d have equality of non-marriage!<\/p>\n

It seems that the terminology of this thing is becoming my big bisexual soapbox of 2012, haha! And yes .. i know .. soapboxes do not have a sexuality. Well done if you spotted my irony there! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Relatedly, for anyone who is trying to preserve the “sanctity of marriage”, the whole “one man, one woman” thing, remember that marriage is a human invention, and is always changing. I loved this poster that i saw the other day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Filed under: bisexual<\/a>, education<\/a>, important<\/a>, politics<\/a>, rant<\/a>, sexuality<\/a>, values<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was once told by an immature teenager that my gloves were gay. It wasn’t even my rainbow gloves, which i’d have to admit, yeah, they’re pretty gay! Even my purple gloves, i’d concede that the kid had a point. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,80,81,82,83,84,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bisexual","category-education","category-important","category-politics","category-rant","category-sexuality","category-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9418,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/9418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}