June 26, 2009

Is Same-Sex Marriage The Last Social Safety Net

  admin   No comments
Found this blog today, called “Balloon Juice.” I think you have to love any blog with a tag line like “Consistently wrong since 2002″ Drew me in and got me interested for sure. This is a pretty cool blog, and John seems to have a vibrant and talkative community of readers. I hope that as my blog gets that old, I too will have built such a community. So, I’m looking forward to reading the blog to see what I can learn and to enjoy the general “gestalt” of Balloon Juice.
The linked blog post is not by the main author, John Cole, but rather by Anne Laurie, and speaks to the notion of Marriage as a social net. Her premise is that the multitude of privileges and benefits bestowed on married couples, may be the last social safety net. It is an interesting read, especially in the context of other blog entries on the blog. She ends with:
Given this situation, is it really that surprising that suddenly (/snark) gay couples are very publicly demanding access to the last American safety net?
I’m not sure that I either 1) agree with her, 2) completely follow her reasoning, 3) all of the above, 4) none of the above. To even suggest that a push for the right to marry is based on an economic/benefit mindset is unjustifiable if you look back more than a few years, over the whole of the push for greater civil rights for the GLBTQ communities. I’d totally agree that the 1400 legal benefits are one of the reasons, and even a primary reason why marriage equality is important, but I think it has little to nothing to do with why these rights are being demanded as they are today, and even less with some very basic financial incentives for couples.
And her post is dangerous, in my opinion, when it allows readers to dilute the reality of the fight for equality to be about little more than a few bucks in the bank. One of the comments:
Marriage is a useless institution-except that no one has come up with a better way to raise kids.
However you have hit the mark on why gays want marriage equality. Its not about sex or love-but old fashioned money.
The reality is that it is about all of these things and far more.  There have been people clamoring for the right to marry as long as I have been out. I knew a couple of lesbians who would every year, go and request a marriage license. This was back in the late 70′s and early 80′s. And there was a lesbian couple- the names escape me now, where the one partner had been in an accident and incapacitated. Because they were not married and not relatives, the parents took custody of the daughter and wouldn’t let the partner see her at all. Imagine how horrible it would be tio loose the person you love in an accident. Imagine how much more painfl that would be to realize that the person isn’t gone- just someone else has the power to take that person away from you.
Often the rights that matter most, are not the ones we grasp and need every day, but the ones we realize we are missing at the worst of times. Like the above example, the case of Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag comes to mind. Leibovitz is in deep financial woes after her late partner Sontag left her a number of properties upon her death. To keep them, she had to find close to half their value. A surviving married spouse has none of those problems.
There is nothing simple about Marriage Equality, except that the ability to form a legal union with the person you choose is a civil right. Past that, the reasons, intentions and motivations vary couple to couple. To reduce it to needing a few extra bucks in hard economic times is insulting.

Found this blog today, called “Balloon Juice.” I think you have to love any blog with a tag line like “Consistently wrong since 2002″ Drew me in and got me interested for sure. This is a pretty cool blog, and John seems to have a vibrant and talkative community of readers. I hope that as my blog gets that old, I too will have built such a community. So, I’m looking forward to reading the blog to see what I can learn and to enjoy the general “gestalt” of Balloon Juice.

The linked blog post is not by the main author, John Cole, but rather by Anne Laurie, and speaks to the notion of Marriage as a social net. Her premise is that the multitude of privileges and benefits bestowed on married couples, may be the last social safety net. It is an interesting read, especially in the context of other blog entries on the blog. She ends with:

Given this situation, is it really that surprising that suddenly (/snark) gay couples are very publicly demanding access to the last American safety net?

I’m not sure that I either 1) agree with her, 2) completely follow her reasoning, 3) all of the above, 4) none of the above. To even suggest that a push for the right to marry is based on an economic/benefit mindset is unjustifiable if you look back more than a few years, over the whole of the push for greater civil rights for the GLBTQ communities. I’d totally agree that the 1400 legal benefits are one of the reasons, and even a primary reason why marriage equality is important, but I think it has little to nothing to do with why these rights are being demanded as they are today, and even less with some very basic financial incentives for couples.

And her post is dangerous, in my opinion, when it allows readers to dilute the reality of the fight for equality to be about little more than a few bucks in the bank. One of the comments:

Marriage is a useless institution-except that no one has come up with a better way to raise kids.

However you have hit the mark on why gays want marriage equality. Its not about sex or love-but old fashioned money.

The reality is that it is about all of these things and far more.  There have been people clamoring for the right to marry as long as I have been out. I knew a couple of lesbians who would every year, go and request a marriage license. This was back in the late 70′s and early 80′s. And there was a lesbian couple- the names escape me now, where the one partner had been in an accident and incapacitated. Because they were not married and not relatives, the parents took custody of the daughter and wouldn’t let the partner see her at all. Imagine how horrible it would be tio loose the person you love in an accident. Imagine how much more painfl that would be to realize that the person isn’t gone- just someone else has the power to take that person away from you.

Often the rights that matter most, are not the ones we grasp and need every day, but the ones we realize we are missing at the worst of times. Like the above example, the case of Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag comes to mind. Leibovitz is in deep financial woes after her late partner Sontag left her a number of properties upon her death. To keep them, she had to find close to half their value. A surviving married spouse has none of those problems.

There is nothing simple about Marriage Equality, except that the ability to form a legal union with the person you choose is a civil right. Past that, the reasons, intentions and motivations vary couple to couple. To reduce it to needing a few extra bucks in hard economic times is insulting.

Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » The Last Social Safety Net.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=23203

If you appreciate reading my posts, would you like to thank me with a coffee?

Posted in: general, Marriage Equality   Tags: , ,