Recently, I put up this question on the Gaysi Community Forum: ‘Do you want the right to marry?‘.
Having been married (to a man) and then going through a traumatic divorce, I know first hand that marriage does not in any way, shape or form guarantee ‘happily ever after’. So do I still want the right to marry? The short answer is: Yes.
It’s definitely not because I think it ensures that my partner won’t leave me as easily as she might if there weren’t legal ties binding her to me. Painful as it was, I eventually did get divorced – so marriage is not a life long commitment any more. My partner and I have been a couple & lived together for over three years now. We’ve been through more changes in our lives in these three years than a lot of people go through in a life time. While I know nothing is certain, I also know that our relationship is stronger than a lot of marriages and I don’t need a stinking certificate to prove that to me.
What I do need that stinking certificate for is to know that we won’t have to live away from each other if something goes wrong in our immigration process. For those of you who don’t know, my partner is American. While some states in the US allow gay marriage, it is not recognised federally, which means that The Girl can’t sponsor me for immigration even if we’re married in those handful of states. And being gaysi means that there is no legal recognition of our relationship in India either. So if something were to happen to either of our work permits here in London, we face being separated from one another because neither of us can live in the others country – something that would never have been a problem if one of us was a man.
I am not exaggerating when I say that we have spent thousands of dollars to ensure that we get our immigration documents in order so that we never have to live apart. Even then, I have to wait till Gay Marriage becomes legal in either of our countries or till I get British citizenship – something that won’t happen for another 5 years, at the very least – to have some sort of guarantee that we won’t be forced apart by evil border forces.
We are in the process of hiring a solicitor to write wills and powers of attorneys so that if something happens to either one of us, there is some form of legal protection for us. Another bank breaker, but imagine being denied visitation rights if your partner is ill and admitted to a hospital, or your partner is the biological mother of your baby & you’re denied parental rights. This is not some melodramatic scenario – it happens all the time.
A Bakersfield, Calif., couple rushed their child to the emergency room with a 104 degree fever. The women were registered domestic partners, but the hospital only allowed the biological mother to stay with the child. Although hospitals typically allow both parents to stay with a child during treatment, in this case, the second parent was forced to stay in the waiting room.
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A woman from Washington collapsed while on vacation in Miami. Although her partner had documentation of her relationship and a power of attorney, she claims hospital officials told her she wasn’t a family member under Florida law. The woman spent hours talking with hospital personnel in an effort to visit her partner’s bedside. Although she eventually prevailed, her partner’s condition had already deteriorated and the woman died. Because of the problem, the children the patient had adopted and been raising with her partner weren’t able to see her before she died. [Link: NYTIMES]
At the end of the day, I just want The Girl & I to have the same freedoms & rights that I had with my ex-husband. Why should we be denied those rights just because we’re both of the same gender? Would I be happy if the term marriage was replaced by ‘civil union’ or ‘domestic partnership’? On some levels, this would be more than enough for me, but I also know that there is an inherent discrimination involved in this approach. Separate is not always equal.
WOAH! Never really thought about things from this angle. I really wish we get the rights to marry whoever we want, wherever we are!
Hope things don’t get complicated for you’ll ever!
Broom, I’m right there with you. I have never been more thankful for living in a super liberal state in the US than when my girlfriend was in the ER – the hospital staff was incredibly kind in letting me stay with her the whole time even when it was very obvious that we were a couple and that I was not “family”. But it’s not like gay marriage is legal here, so…obviously those rights aren’t at all guaranteed. I also agree that I don’t care if it’s called marriage or not, but I do want to know that should I be with a woman for the rest of my life, I’d have the same rights as if I were with a man.
Very much agree with you, Broom. I hope your relationship with The Girl never suffers any travails – borders or otherwise.
Instead of upholding “Marriage is a union between a man and a woman”, The anti-same-sex-marriage brigade should focus their efforts on “Marriage is a union between two people in love”. Sometimes the essence of relationships are clouded amidst all the superficialities.
Well looking at the current Indian scenario the *very basic* legal rights you are talking about I hope to see in this lifetime but honestly I won’t count on it. We are still at a phase where people are only just getting acquainted with words such as “gay”, “homosexuals”, “lesbians”….”Queer” (is still quite unheard of).
In a country divided in religion, culture, sub-culture plus the economic barriers – it’s going to take a lot of hard work.
MJ,
thats so true.. esp. about usage of the term Queer.
To digress a bit – it brings to mind a certain headline that I read in Pune Mirror on Sunday, which was misleading at first glance :
PDFA queers FIFA’s pitch
http://www.punemirror.in/article/62/2010082920100829002202393d8b9d996/PDFA-queers-FIFA%E2%80%99s-pitch.html?pageno=1
I suppose the term queer can be used in a non-sexual context, yet the headline left me somewhat confused, even after reading the article.
Of course – queer as a verb also means to hinder or prevent or spoil, so it is not incorrect in the context of the article, but perhaps I associate queer more with sexual orientation.
Broom,
I am going to totally have to disagree with you on this! I am divorced and I really feel that marriage as a structure is made by man and in the case, it doesn’t work.
The more I look at marriage around me, the more I find people cheating and the more I believe that a structure/label/names and laws for a relationship don’t work
What makes it more beautiful is when you decide the rules. And I know it stinks to need a certificate to live in the same country… but I think i feel lucky that I don’t need or want to be married.
The fact, that everything becomes a little tougher and is not on a plate makes my relationship so much more worthy of fighting for!
That’s my POV! A little romantic perhaps and not at all practical! But I think sometimes marriage makes it official. Makes it claustrophobic. Sometimes two people are best as friends/lovers/live-in partners!
@Tappy Tippy: I think you’re missing the entire point of the post. I’m not waxing eloquent on the joys of marriage here. As a fellow divorcee I know what a shitty institution it can be.
If wanting to have the rights I mentioned in the post means that I have to be married, however, then I don’t care how unromantic it might seem to tie the knot. Romance is all nice and good but in the cold harsh light of day, what I’d really like is to know that I can’t be torn apart from my loved one and that if something happens to me or her then we have the right to look after each other.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Broom. I am in a constant struggle to “stabilize” my visa status in India to have the right to stay with my Desi fiancee. We can’t go to the US, and without the proper paperwork, I can’t stay here in India.
Brutal marriages aside (and I have one behind me as well), it’s a practical issue for me, that makes it imperative that we keep fighting for gay marriage.
i hear you! I know I was one of those that raised that question some time ago. It’s the legal disadvantages of not being married that brought home the point for me – like the immigration dangers and the horror of not being allowed in a hospital. I had naively assumed that in the West, things were better at least rights-wise for gay people… silly me! And good point about why it should be called marriage and not something else either… why should there be a difference?
I feel like it takes a lot of privilege to be able to marry (to have the money to) but also takes a lot of privilege to not “need” to (to have enough money to not need the tax breaks etc.).
Agree with Broom on the importance of an official acknowledgment of co-gender relationships, and that it should be treated in the same lines as man-woman relationship.
Also, as rightly quoted by MJ, here in India, we have still a long way to go.
I completely sync with your ideas, Broom. When I debate about Prop 8 to non-believers and skeptics, I keep reinforcing that “I did not give a crap if they believed Jesus will bless gay couples or not. All I want is equal opportunity and rights. Its fundamentally about civil rights which then extend to immigration rights and others.”
Marriage is just a contract – more of a legal contract and has always been. It has been used as a tool (called stability of family at times) in the Indian society but is nothing more than the parents and society’s way of blessing the kids to marry and populate. When 2 people have committed in a relationship, I don’t think its the govt or the society’s damn business to solemnise it for any more than legal reasons.
Please take a moment to read this story:
Gay couple separated by Immigration law, as one fights cancer.
http://www.dallasvoice.com/couple-separated-immigration-laws-battles-terminal-cancer-congressman-refuses-intervene-1042578.html
“Were Roi and Aurelio a married heterosexual couple, Roi would be eligible to apply to sponsor Aurelio for residency in the United States. Because they are a gay couple, however, that option is not open to them,”