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Getting hitched

by Pam Benneti

I'm getting hitched.
Yes, I, who have previously bemoaned the institution of marriage, am going to partake in a hand-fasting ceremony with my partner next year. We'd danced a slow dance around the issue for a while, each of us carefully lobbing innuendo and sometimes not-so-subtle hints at each other, laughing the topic off as a "hypothetical" situation whenever we'd become uncomfortable with the standard vernacular of marriage.. Neither of us are fans of what could be called traditional marriage, and in order to make the concept work for us we've had to gut a lot of things that most people would consider inviolate. There won't be rice thrown (Praise Bob, how can you waste good food like that!?) white wedding gowns, the typical vows or even rings. We'll be doing the deed, but as Elvis once said, we're doing it OUR WAY.
One traditional item I did feel the need to retain was the idea of proposing. In my mind's eye I had the perfect place picked out, the perfect wording to the question , props, theater and all. As so often happens, what actually happened didn't resemble my grandiose ideal much at all, but it was far more satisfying in the end. We'd just eaten a fabulous dinner, during which the talk of the "hypothetical" hand-fasting had reached a new pitch. We were down to discussing "hypothetical" practicalities, whose bed we should keep, how to consolidate households, when to tell people. It was beginning to feel like we'd put the U-haul ahead of the truck. This rather important and potentially stressful event of asking hadn't even been completed yet. So, when we got back to her place, I teetered on the brink; if I waited I could arrange that perfect ideal, but if I waited this particular moment would be lost forever, and we had just been playing "Wheel Of Fortune" with the wording all the way to her place, and she'd gotten 3 out of the five words I'd planned to utter.
She was watching me expectantly just inside the door, her eyes the most remarkable shade of blue I'd ever seen, her cheeks slightly blushing. I couldn't wait. I fell to my knees there, in her living room and said it; "Will you share your life with me?" Time seemed to stop. She got on her knees and we held each other for an eternity and she said "Yes," then she repeated my question back to me. I could only say yes. Spontaneity won the day.
There was an epiphany in that moment. Opponents of equal marriage can legislate, and protest our love, and amend constitutions till their Hell freezes over, and it is all ultimately futile. Their laws are irrelevant, however much political power they may wield. All their power pales to insignificance, dwarfed by the luminosity of love, a super-nova they dare not look at for too long lest they be blinded.
Does anyone really believe they are "protecting traditional marriage" from the big, bad lesbians? Me neither. Can they inconvenience us? Yes, they can. Does it matter? No. To an increasing number of people it is coming to look like what it is; a mean-spirited attempt to inflict misery on people the religious bigots simply hate. Societal acceptance of gays is on the rise, not that that matters either. What matters? Her smile. The light in her eyes. The butterflies in my stomach when she looks at me with that look. The knowledge that nothing anyone can do, no law, no scriptures, no threat can change the way we feel toward each other.
So to the Gary Glenns and Alan Cropseys of the world I say; legislate away, while you still can. Do your worst. Break a leg. To quote the Buddha; "That which you resist persists!"

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