Give OR take a bit; it was roughly 4 years ago that you said what you said. You said that my family structure didn’t deserve the same recognition as yours did. You asked me, as I stood in front of you, with a growing fetus in my belly, how was I was created; I said ‘my mother and my father’. You said EXACTLY, mother AND father.
I was in your home, unable to escape at the current moment, in the process of making something, but I had two friends with, two friends who you were insulting too. Insulting and infuriating.
You see it was the time of the VOTE NO (or yes) to either keep the MN constitution as it was, or to change it to state that marriage was exclusively between a man and woman. We were supporters of VOTE NO – I foolishly assumed you would be too. You have siblings who are in the LGBT community as well, that you have spoken favorably of numerous times, so again, I foolishly assumed.
I assumed WRONG. You stood there; I don’t know if it was booze that gave you the gumption to spew these thoughts, were you just holding them in until you got the liquid courage?
No matter – you told me that you would be voting YES. That it is your firm belief that marriage has always been and should always be between one MAN and one WOMAN.
I am sure my mouth dropped to the floor; at least this is what my friends told me I looked like. Somehow I attempted to regain my composure. You see, I have lived a somewhat ‘sheltered’ gay life here in the good, open, welcoming state of MN. I have had a few challenges but nothing like the tragedies that have befallen fellow members of the LGBT community in other parts of the country.
When I made a feeble attempt to challenge your viewpoint, with valid and well-founded reasons why I disagreed with you, you came at me with how the purpose of marriage was to procreate. This is something, in your mind, that was impossible in my relationship.
[Let me remind you, I was standing in front of you, a few months PREGNANT.]
The real kicker of all of this – you have chosen to not have children. Granted I don’t know your whole story, as you don’t know mine, perhaps there is some medical reason you cannot have children, but you have always, at least in my company, been very adamant that you do NOT want children. So then my friend……………why did you marry?
For love?
For the financial benefit?
For the security of having the one you chose as your life partner being able to visit you in the hospital if, heaven forbid, something happened that left you unable to make decisions for yourself?
Or any of the other 515 laws in MN (at that moment in time) that treated my relationship differently than yours.
No matter the reason really, you chose to marry and you CHOSE not to procreate.
I would give anything to be able to get married, to not have to consult a lawyer before the birth of OUR child to draft powers of attorney, to provide legal guardianship of our daughter to my ‘partner’ should something happen to me during childbirth and numerous other legal directives.
It took me 4 years to process this. I don’t know what hit me this morning and made me really mad about this, perhaps the current political atmosphere made me think of it again. Especially seems as we WERE married a year later and not much longer after that our marriage was FEDERALLY recognized.
But you know what – I AM MAD – so I’m blogging. Then I’ll be over it (maybe). While our relationship wasn’t exactly a close one, it was important to me because of the link there to my background, I will not get into it more than that. However, since this happened I have not seen you, I have not been to your home, and I don’t know that I ever will again.
You see – you disrespected me. Your liquid courage brought to the level of your mouth what you had obviously wanted to say to me in the past. I hate liquid courage; you see I have always been the kind of person who has said what’s on my mind. I don’t ‘beat around the bush’, sure this has got me in trouble, on numerous occasions, but at least you’ll always know where you stand with me.
Let’s fast forward 4 years, my wife and I have been happily married for a little over 3 years. We are raising an amazing, well rounded, fiercely independent and stubborn little girl, and if I may say so myself, we are doing a pretty damn good job.
Of course you have every right to your opinion, as I do mine, however, I‘d never have put myself in that situation had I known your true feelings regarding the life growing in my belly and how we created that life.
Ingrid says
You’re courage is showing… 😀
I stand with you against the insanity and ignorance.
Ingrid says
*Your
Darn “most used words” autocorrect!