Another_Voice_MDF (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} anothervoicemdf) wrote,@ 2008-11-03 09:38:00 |
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An Open Letter on Same-Sex Marriage
As anyone who has read these pages for a while knows well, marriage equality is an issue of deep importance to me. With all the other potential good news about the upcoming election, I’ve been saddened to read that Proposition 8, in California, which would amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage, seems likely to pass. I wanted to fly out to California and be part of the campaign to oppose the amendment, but I just couldn’t make it work. So I’ve been doing what I can from a distance. Part of which, has involved making a personal appeal to my family and family friends in that state.
For the most part, I try to keep politics out of my relationships with friends and family. I know there are people I love who I disagree with, and while debating is fun, I mostly try and not make political appeals to family or close friends. But this upcoming vote on Proposition 8 in California- it just feels like something I have to reach out on. Partially as someone who just got married myself, partially because I know so many dear friends who are personally effected by this- and just because it just seems so wrong to set barriers on who can love each other based on gender, and whose love the state will recognize as valid.
Last night, I sent an open letter by email to a number of my California resident family and friends, people who I wasn’t already sure how they would vote, people who had been invited to my wedding and either attended or sent their blessings and best wishes. I asked them, in that spirit of support for my own marriage, to support access to marriage for all.
It’s not my best piece of advocacy. Far from it- somehow the personal nature of writing this made it all the harder to find the right words, and I’m still far from satisfied. But I wanted to send it, and to post it here.
To my Californian family and friends,
A little more then a month ago, as you all know, I got married. Many of you were able to travel the great distance to be with Meg and I on that special day, and as a part of that ceremony you gave us your blessing. Those of you who could not be with us in body made sure to let us know you were present in spirit, and I was greatly touched by your words of support and affirmation as Meg and I took this new journey together. It is in that spirit that I am writing to you all now, to ask you to once again affirm and bless my wedding to Meg by helping to make sure that no one is denied the right to find such blessing in their own lives. I am writing to you to ask you to honor and defend my own marriage by voting against proposition 8 in the upcoming California elections.
Let me start by saying that this email is out of the norm for me. All who know me know how passionately I care about politics and issues of justice, and that I follow CNN and election news with the same fervor with which I follow my New York Mets. Yet I have always tried to let political matters stop at the water’s edge. I adore arguing politics with friends or family and I deeply respect the beliefs of those of my friends and family who disagree with me on political or justice issues, and while I’ve not always succeeded, I’ve tried to never cross the line from conversational debate into advocacy, trying to convince someone to vote one way or the other in a manner more appropriate for a political campaign then a friendly discussion.
In short, I’ve never sent an email like this before. Nor do I expect to again. Yet in regard to this issue, at this time, given the importance of the issue and my own recent personal connection to it, I feel I must make this personal appeal. And I use that phrase, “personal appeal” intentionally. I don’t want to go into all the arguments that I’m sure you’ve heard over and over again, on both sides. Same sex marriage after all isn’t just about the nature of marriage and love, its about access to health insurance and adoption, and tax benefits, and all the numerous ways that same sex couples are discriminated against by not being allowed to marry, but I don’t want to use this space for that argument. I don’t want to use this space to challenge the myths that have been spread about Prop 8, though I hope anyone who thinks that this bill would in any way effect churches, reads this- http://www.noonprop8.com/about/fact-v
Because my marriage is meaningless unless everyone is allowed the same right, regardless of the gender of their partner.
I asked Meg to marry me because I knew that I had found in her the person I wanted to build a life with. Because at the center of my own personal theology is the idea that we experience God in our relationship to others, in our love for others, and that nothing in my life had brought me closer to an understanding of God then my love and connection to Meg. I learned what I understand about love as I’ve learned almost all of the most important things in my life; by observing others. I’ve seen love between people of the same gender, and of different genders, and I’ve seen no difference. Just as the God I believe in loves us all with no care for the human classifications of gender, class, race, or what have you, so to I cannot believe that love knows any such classification or barrier.
As part of our journey toward marriage, Meg and I discussed at length and then put on paper what marriage meant to us:
“We, Matthew and Meg, understand marriage and the wedding that creates the marriage to be a celebration of two people vowing before God and their friends and family to spend their lives together in a covenant of love and trust and commitment. In our understanding, and that of our church, the love that is at the heart of a marriage is not affected by gender. The vows we take to each other are not as man and woman but as two children of God, solemnizing their love in sacred covenant, and would be no different and no less sacred were they undertaken by two people of the same gender.”
I must confess, I began this letter more then a week ago. I have returned to it almost every night since, and found myself searching in vain to find the right words. I hoped to give a passionate, personal appeal, to tell you why it so breaks my heart to think that two people in love should be denied the fundamental joy that Meg and I were able to share. To make an argument that was not patronizing or condescending, but tried to tell you why I, as someone who was so recently married myself, takesthis issue so personally.
I’m not sure I have succeeded in walking that fine line. In fact I’m rather sure I have not, and for any of you who are offended by my words, I am sorry. It is ironic that someone who makes his living by convincing others with his words finds himself so at a loss on a matter of such importance. But the election is now but a few days away, and my window to edit and re-edit this is growing short, and this needs to be sent. Because at heart this isn’t about making a perfectly crafted argument, or addressing all of the policy and financial and civil rights arguments that surround the issue of gay marriage.
It is about the simple fact that every time others are denied the right to marry because of the gender of the person they love, it denigrates the love that is at the center of my own marriage. It makes love about categories, about something that can be felt only by one type of person toward another type of person. That understanding of love simply fails to explain what it was that led me to stand before my friends, my family and my God and pledge myself to Meg. On behalf of all of my friends and loved ones who have recently made their own pledges of love to each other in the state of California, pledges that will be dissolved in the eyes of the law if Proposition 8 is allowed to pass, on behalf of all of those who helped me to understand what love truly is, and to help bring me to that garden in Brooklyn last month-- please vote no on Proposition 8.
In closing, please understand that I will make this appeal once, and once only. I am more then happy to discuss this with any of you at length, to hear your responses and reflections and disagreements if you wish to have that discussion. But I promise you that it is not an issue I will bring up again. I will never quiz you about how you in the end voted, or make this a source of strife when next we meet. You are my friends and my family, and we may simply agree to disagree.
But this one time I will ask- if you support my own marriage to Meg, please do not allow California to denigrate it, by declaring the marriages of others less valid. Please defend my marriage, all marriage, by voting against proposition 8.
As anyone who has read these pages for a while knows well, marriage equality is an issue of deep importance to me. With all the other potential good news about the upcoming election, I’ve been saddened to read that Proposition 8, in California, which would amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage, seems likely to pass. I wanted to fly out to California and be part of the campaign to oppose the amendment, but I just couldn’t make it work. So I’ve been doing what I can from a distance. Part of which, has involved making a personal appeal to my family and family friends in that state.
For the most part, I try to keep politics out of my relationships with friends and family. I know there are people I love who I disagree with, and while debating is fun, I mostly try and not make political appeals to family or close friends. But this upcoming vote on Proposition 8 in California- it just feels like something I have to reach out on. Partially as someone who just got married myself, partially because I know so many dear friends who are personally effected by this- and just because it just seems so wrong to set barriers on who can love each other based on gender, and whose love the state will recognize as valid.
Last night, I sent an open letter by email to a number of my California resident family and friends, people who I wasn’t already sure how they would vote, people who had been invited to my wedding and either attended or sent their blessings and best wishes. I asked them, in that spirit of support for my own marriage, to support access to marriage for all.
It’s not my best piece of advocacy. Far from it- somehow the personal nature of writing this made it all the harder to find the right words, and I’m still far from satisfied. But I wanted to send it, and to post it here.
To my Californian family and friends,
A little more then a month ago, as you all know, I got married. Many of you were able to travel the great distance to be with Meg and I on that special day, and as a part of that ceremony you gave us your blessing. Those of you who could not be with us in body made sure to let us know you were present in spirit, and I was greatly touched by your words of support and affirmation as Meg and I took this new journey together. It is in that spirit that I am writing to you all now, to ask you to once again affirm and bless my wedding to Meg by helping to make sure that no one is denied the right to find such blessing in their own lives. I am writing to you to ask you to honor and defend my own marriage by voting against proposition 8 in the upcoming California elections.
Let me start by saying that this email is out of the norm for me. All who know me know how passionately I care about politics and issues of justice, and that I follow CNN and election news with the same fervor with which I follow my New York Mets. Yet I have always tried to let political matters stop at the water’s edge. I adore arguing politics with friends or family and I deeply respect the beliefs of those of my friends and family who disagree with me on political or justice issues, and while I’ve not always succeeded, I’ve tried to never cross the line from conversational debate into advocacy, trying to convince someone to vote one way or the other in a manner more appropriate for a political campaign then a friendly discussion.
In short, I’ve never sent an email like this before. Nor do I expect to again. Yet in regard to this issue, at this time, given the importance of the issue and my own recent personal connection to it, I feel I must make this personal appeal. And I use that phrase, “personal appeal” intentionally. I don’t want to go into all the arguments that I’m sure you’ve heard over and over again, on both sides. Same sex marriage after all isn’t just about the nature of marriage and love, its about access to health insurance and adoption, and tax benefits, and all the numerous ways that same sex couples are discriminated against by not being allowed to marry, but I don’t want to use this space for that argument. I don’t want to use this space to challenge the myths that have been spread about Prop 8, though I hope anyone who thinks that this bill would in any way effect churches, reads this- http://www.noonprop8.com/about/fact-v
Because my marriage is meaningless unless everyone is allowed the same right, regardless of the gender of their partner.
I asked Meg to marry me because I knew that I had found in her the person I wanted to build a life with. Because at the center of my own personal theology is the idea that we experience God in our relationship to others, in our love for others, and that nothing in my life had brought me closer to an understanding of God then my love and connection to Meg. I learned what I understand about love as I’ve learned almost all of the most important things in my life; by observing others. I’ve seen love between people of the same gender, and of different genders, and I’ve seen no difference. Just as the God I believe in loves us all with no care for the human classifications of gender, class, race, or what have you, so to I cannot believe that love knows any such classification or barrier.
As part of our journey toward marriage, Meg and I discussed at length and then put on paper what marriage meant to us:
“We, Matthew and Meg, understand marriage and the wedding that creates the marriage to be a celebration of two people vowing before God and their friends and family to spend their lives together in a covenant of love and trust and commitment. In our understanding, and that of our church, the love that is at the heart of a marriage is not affected by gender. The vows we take to each other are not as man and woman but as two children of God, solemnizing their love in sacred covenant, and would be no different and no less sacred were they undertaken by two people of the same gender.”
I must confess, I began this letter more then a week ago. I have returned to it almost every night since, and found myself searching in vain to find the right words. I hoped to give a passionate, personal appeal, to tell you why it so breaks my heart to think that two people in love should be denied the fundamental joy that Meg and I were able to share. To make an argument that was not patronizing or condescending, but tried to tell you why I, as someone who was so recently married myself, takesthis issue so personally.
I’m not sure I have succeeded in walking that fine line. In fact I’m rather sure I have not, and for any of you who are offended by my words, I am sorry. It is ironic that someone who makes his living by convincing others with his words finds himself so at a loss on a matter of such importance. But the election is now but a few days away, and my window to edit and re-edit this is growing short, and this needs to be sent. Because at heart this isn’t about making a perfectly crafted argument, or addressing all of the policy and financial and civil rights arguments that surround the issue of gay marriage.
It is about the simple fact that every time others are denied the right to marry because of the gender of the person they love, it denigrates the love that is at the center of my own marriage. It makes love about categories, about something that can be felt only by one type of person toward another type of person. That understanding of love simply fails to explain what it was that led me to stand before my friends, my family and my God and pledge myself to Meg. On behalf of all of my friends and loved ones who have recently made their own pledges of love to each other in the state of California, pledges that will be dissolved in the eyes of the law if Proposition 8 is allowed to pass, on behalf of all of those who helped me to understand what love truly is, and to help bring me to that garden in Brooklyn last month-- please vote no on Proposition 8.
In closing, please understand that I will make this appeal once, and once only. I am more then happy to discuss this with any of you at length, to hear your responses and reflections and disagreements if you wish to have that discussion. But I promise you that it is not an issue I will bring up again. I will never quiz you about how you in the end voted, or make this a source of strife when next we meet. You are my friends and my family, and we may simply agree to disagree.
But this one time I will ask- if you support my own marriage to Meg, please do not allow California to denigrate it, by declaring the marriages of others less valid. Please defend my marriage, all marriage, by voting against proposition 8.
