Dear Elli,
Something big happened last Friday. You don't care much. Your biggest concern these days is your upcoming 6th birthday party. But it is really freaking big, believe me.
Marriage equality happened. Last Friday, it was determined by the Supreme Court that you, and I, and everyone else in the whole country can marry whomever we please. With equal benefits, equal ability to bicker meaninglessly over laundry, dishes, litter boxes, trash removal, appropriate room temperatures, and television shows, and finally......equal requirement to split all your shit in half if it doesn't work out, for all!
So now gay people can get married in this country, without worrying about a single state law banning their union. They can make a legal commitment to one another. They can have the tax breaks and the health insurance and the ability to leave their ugly family heirlooms to one another without a giant hassle and all the other legal benefits that I've taken for granted for the past eleven years of my marriage. Cool, right? Why shouldn't everyone be able to do that?
I suspect that there won't be a whole lot of thought one way or another about the whole thing from the people of your generation. It will be a given, like interracial marriage is to my generation. Something that has always been.
But change is not easy. You see, some people are super duper pissed right now. They believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. They use words and phrases like "unnatural" and "against the Bible", among other things.
If marriage is legally defined as a union with the sole purpose of creating offspring, or as an entirely Christian ceremony for only those sects of Christianity who do not believe in gay marriage, then they're right. And I'd be pissed, too. I'd be pissed at the gay people, and I'd be pissed at all of those selfish bastard married couples with no kids, and all of the Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist and atheist couples who dare to call their non-Christian union a marriage.
I'm being an asshole. But it's a point that I think is valid. Marriage means different things to different people. But what we're discussing when we talk about marriage equality is the legal definition. And that doesn't have to jive with anyone's personal definition. Personal or religious definitions are irrelevant in the eyes of the law. That's the beauty of America.
It's no secret that I'm pretty liberal. I really think everyone should do their thing, whatever that is, with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. I think some people are bizarre, and I don't want to play Jenga with them on Saturday nights in our living room. But, they don't deserve any less than I do as a US citizen under US law. Whether they walk around dressed like Captain America. Or Cat Woman. Or Justice Scalia. (I'm being an asshole again.)
I guess I just don't see what all the fuss is about. My life is the same today as it was when I went to bed last Thursday evening. Marriage equality didn't help me in my daily life, and it didn't hurt me either. But it made life better for a lot of people. And that makes me proud to have witnessed such a victory. Because everyone deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law.
This is, after all, America. Where all men (and women) are created equal. (The women being equal part came much later, and people thought that was "unnatural" and "against the Bible", too. Just saying....)
I love you. And I'm proud of our country.
Mom
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