Will You Marry Me?

Something larger then the quest for marriage is swelling the gay ranks. A sort of massive re-think, as we collectively must understand what marriage means to us.

I was morbidly surfing Facebook and came across my ex-bf, with my ex-bf's fag hag (does that make sense?) in the odd scenario of six degrees of gay separation, this is too close for comfort. I almost felt my ears burning. Then another set of friends, an older gay couple posted their wedding pictures from their Mass ceremony.

During Stonewall we protested for our sexual freedom, our ability to kiss in public and hold hands, "we're loud and proud!" "We're here, we're queer!" Now we protest for our right to commit in a relationship, to grow old together, to be taxed equally, to help our partner in the hospital. To divorce. To finally discover what the contract of marriage means to us.

This also affects dating patterns; we eye each others' in a different way. Are they partner material, not how many rungs they have on their six pack (even though both seem vital). I wonder what the gay biological clock is set to. 50 plus?

Not 40 or 30 like our straight counterparts. I snapped this photo of a husband carrying his baby at the NYC protest. I've also seen them in line at Magnolia bakery in the Village, waiting for cupcakes. They give me hope, yet seem frightfully unique.

This fight is helping gay people, who have never had a role model, also, strangely understand what commitment is. Do we stand by a partner? What is the bond of love? What is our book of love? How we answer these questions will be vital. Since this will be the form of our relationships, how we commit, on our grounds, and actually evolve the institution of marriage, not fracture it. Marriage: once a model to suppress women's rights to succession and property (think Jane Austen), then re-defined to take love into account (a relatively new concept), now building on the civil-rights movement.

What will our marriages look like? How will this change our dating patterns? Please discuss, leave a comment.

Originally posted but modified for HuffPo, follow me on twitter.

 

 

 

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Comments

[thebigbike]

12:00 AM on 11/19/2008

My husband and I ( I started by saying my "partner" ) have been together nearly 31 years when we actually got MARRIED last month before the California ban . I suspect the vast majority of same sex marriages will be be boringly much the same as those of the mixed sex couples we're used to seeing. For a while at least, though, the fact that we've had to work and wait so long for it will actually give it greater value for many of us. But then, with heterosexual role models like Britney Spears, could we do any worse?

[aland7169]

11:47 AM on 11/20/2008

That's why I laugh when people say "the gay lifestyle". I think we're fighting to be as boring as everyone else.

[M1]

08:06 PM on 11/18/2008

.....with hands that know dignity and self love that is how we begin to write our book of Love.

[NickyFitt]

03:06 PM on 11/18/2008

That's my brother-in-law and my nephew!! They give me hope, too!