IT said...
I cried today. Stupid. I was at my dentist's (he's a friend and came to our wedding) and he cheerfully said, "How's married life treating you?" and I replied, waaay too seriously, "good for as long as it lasts," and then he wanted to know about the court case, and if we'd heard whether our marriage would last, and when we would KNOW, and how we are doing, etc etc and I had to go through it all again.
I walked out to the car afterwards and got in and cried tears of anger and frustration--not at my dear dentist, but at feeling I'm living betwixt and between, unresolved, at being A Thing whose fate is decided by courts and how the PropH8 people took my euphoric feeling that finally I was a Real Married Person with a real place in society, like everyone else, and they threw me back into the gutter and kicked me back into being an unwanted outsider.
And then I dried my eyes and went to work and tried, yet again, to get past it.
Sorry to be so cranky folks, but there are days when it's hard to see that The Church has done much of anything other than create hell on earth for so many people for 20 centuries.
You are absolutely right. And I have a very difficult time being a Christian in the institutional church....
ReplyDeleteBut I am anti-institutional too. By nature, made that way.
And I truly understand the drive and desire for equality, and I earnestly believe that same-gender couples should have the very same priviliges and responsibilities as female/male couples --but just as with the church, there is much about the institution of marriage with which I have great difficulty...
But while we are striving for marriage equality, perhaps this is not the time to question the institution itself.... or is it?
while we are striving for marriage equality, perhaps this is not the time to question the institution itself.... or is it?
ReplyDeleteYou, margaret, are free not only to "question the institution", but reject it outright.
However, when it comes down to the personal choice to marry then, outside any given couple, there's really no "we."
I'm flattered that my post was picked up. I was afraid you would all think I'm just whinging....which I am, but it's not "just".
ReplyDeleteIn so many ways, not "just".
Re Marriage: I think about this as I think about someone saying "well, Brad Pitt isn't married!" Brad Pitt can decide whether or not to marry. He has a choice. It's different not having the choice.
I want to be married in all the usual ways (and I am in most of them, thanks to the most amazing wife whose love strengthns me daily!). I'd like the choice, thanks very much, to participate in the institution as it is.