Marriage means something.

It means something.

It does.

The word.  "Marriage."

...You know, I've always been appalled, absolutely appalled, horrified, disgusted and angry at what people have said, done, to other people, just normal people -- fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters, for the sin of loving.  

And recently, I've had a lot of reason to think about this, because I myself just got married.

For a long time I thought that if we created some way for gay people to have an institution that conferred all the same legal rights that straight marriage confers, it would be a solution.  A solution that would create equality in the eyes of the law, even if it didn't have the same name.

Then, after seeing so many vociferous complaints that that just wasn't enough and the word `marriage' must apply to all civil unions, hetero- or homo- sexual or it's still plain unfair, I thought "Well, I guess if it means so much to so many people, maybe that's the way to go, fine, I'll root for that, then."  

But I didn't get it.

I got married on July 2, 2006.  Luckily, I'm female, and my husband is male, otherwise, that wouldn't have worked out so well for us here in the extremely progressive state of California.

We had only a charity registry through JustGive.org, which we created early this year, and one of the four charities we picked was Park Square Advocates, Inc. (a.k.a. GLAD, defenders of gay and lesbian civil rights, marriage and otherwise).  Because, frankly, it's bullshit that we were allowed to get married while so many others aren't.  (Especially considering that as an interracial couple, we would've been felons in close to 40 states at earlier points in history for the same.)

About a week before our wedding (I had originally wanted to elope, mind you, but I think in the end we handled the stress pretty well) amidst piles of wedding crap that were lounging against boxes we still hadn't unpacked from our May move, I was sitting next to my fiancé on the living room couch.  I don't remember what we were talking about, but the emotion of this time in our lives was pretty heavy in the room.  If any of you out there has ever really been in love, you know what I'm talking about.  You look at someone and see your past, present, and future all at once.  You can't even find words for all that you feel for this person anymore.  And every passing second you somehow manage to love them even more.

It was in this moment that he took my hand, and looked at me, almost tearing up.  He said (I'm paraphrasing) "God.  I love you so much...  I can't imagine what it would feel like to love you this much... and not be able to have society acknowledge it, the way it is for everyone else."

And I felt the same way.  But I still didn't get it.  Not because I ever doubted that love between two same-gendered people could be just as profound as our love, but because I didn't see the significance of the word "marriage".

But now I do.  Because I've been married for three weeks now... and I can say that to people and they know what it means.  Because my husband is my "husband."  He is also my partner, and my best friend, and the love of my life.  But saying he is my husband eclipses all those terms in just two syllables.

Marriage is more than a word, because of the meaning we collectively give to that word.  

I used to think of marriage as a somewhat arbitrary milepost stuck in the ground along the journey you take through life with someone.  For the two of us, it is still relatively arbitrary emotionally (though it was an AWESOME party), but it's more than a milepost.  It doesn't change who you are with someone.  In our case, it didn't change where we live, our level of intimacy, our future plans together, or anything else.  But it changed society's view of us.  

It reminds me of turning 18 in some ways - the doors that are opened, the legitimacy bestowed.  Society saying "you belong to someone" is powerful.  And that power is, for now, contained in the word "marriage" and not anywhere else.  Certainly not in the words "civil union" or "commitment ceremony."  My wedding was, in fact, both a civil union and a commitment ceremony but I don't call it that because people get confused.  You see, we already have a word that means both of those things and more, and that word is wedding.

Some may argue that over time "civil union" may start to mean the same thing as "marriage."  To that I say, why the hell should it have to???!?  We already have a word for what happens when two people fall in love and decide to dedicate themselves to that love for life.  It's called marriage.

Marriage is a word people understand.  In our society, people `get,' I mean really get what it means to be married and all that accompanies it.  Let me know when/if you get whatever the hell it means to be "civil unionned" ...  "Civilly united?" ... You see my point?

This is not a "a rose by any other name" situation.  Creating another supposedly equal classification for a subsection of our society has been tried before.  In case you missed the memo (I admit I almost did) "separate but equal" doesn't work.  You get all the separateness and none of the equality.

This is a "call a spade a spade" situation.  Or in this case, call a marriage a marriage.