Written: 11/11/2011
For the first time in my life, it seems as though Marriage Equality is a a real possibility. And as I’ve said before, you don’t need a license to spend your life with someone, to care for someone and to face the world with them. But the license helps immensely. It gives you federal and state benefits, raises your relationship to a level that everyone can quickly comprehend and offers protections, rights and responsibilities.
And I’m not in a relationship at the moment, and of course, I’m not really looking for one anyway but this is touching. A growing number of straight couples (and I think it’s a great reading for gay weddings too), are using quotes from the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling:
Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.”
“It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right.’ Without the right to choose to marry, one is excluded from the full range of human experience.”
– 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
I like it a lot, I hope more people use it.
All my best,
The King of Spades
