I'm screaming daisies from fourteen miles away

HEY.

I LIKE YOU.

EVEN WHEN WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING UNCOMFORTABLE AND LAME, LIKE WAKE UP EARLY AND WATCH A SCARY MOVIE WE DO IT, AND ITS AWESOME.

We spent the morning in Queer history talking about Gay Marriage.

Here are basic arguments for and against from my notes:

AGAINST - RIGHT WING
- Procreation
- Religious reasons
- "wrong" // unnatural
- slippery slope society (goats)
- polygamy (also religion again)

FOR - Conservative
- It's not fair (people should have any rights any other people)
- "expression of commitment" > our love is as valid as straight people's / recognition

FOR - Radical
- Change basic def of marriage: shake up the institution, allow for more things (not just gay marriage)
- a fundamental challenge to gender roles. (feminist argument for gay marriage in a way)

AGAINST - QUEER
- Reinforcing hetrosexual model
- Doesn't recognize difference of being gay (looking for autonomy, not assimilation)
- Marriage screwed up anyway
- isolates the married ones > good gays v. bad gays
- fighting for better RIGHTS for EVERYONE, not better rights for those special people in a monogamous relationship. Fight for a better america. Rights for citizens. This is to say yes to the fucked up system. (a big gay stamp of approval on a messed up thing.)
- endless public broadcast of: coupledom is the only okay thing. (Single people second class citizens in a way)

MY THOUGHTS
I am Catholic. I like ceremonies and symbols -- the candles, incense and water. I can recognize the insistence on a kind of ceremony to celebrate a decision like this. But I don't like the model we have.

I am socialist enough to think: yeah, you should let people know. Not in terms of "validation", not at all. More like: people should come to the party. It is a celebration of a togetherness and it is stupid to exclude other people from that.

I do have a problem with the whole material part now. The gift registries, the going broke on a ring/dress. It used to be about "their house is empty, and they don't have full-sized sheets," and that is something I can get behind. But these days everyone HAS too much for this to perform the same purpose.

We went on in class to talk about every various take and thought on marriage, and it became so abstract that it became meaningless. And it's kind of like that anyway, these days. The only marriage I ever saw that truly made sense was Grandma and Grandpa, and I never saw how they worked really. I know Grandma had all the power and Grandpa knew it and was cool with that. They were true to themselves. Funny how that works, huh.

I have been grappling with this whole marriage thing lately mostly because of the way people ask me questions at work. Because I don't get it. Ultimately, I think it tends to be medieval and allows for a lot more abuse and psychological problems, and that that outweighs the healthcare/taxes thing, which I think doesn't really belong in the context of a relationship anyway. But I also recognize it doesn't have to be. Medieval that is. But then what is it, and why do we have to call it that? Why should we call it anything, except for parents and relations who wouldn't understand.

I hate to do Big Things for the sake of other people.
But I also hate being that selfish.