Manolo for the Brides

I had a different post planned for this morning, but a shout-out to the fact that Mexico City legislature’s voted to legalize gay marriage (as opposed to civil unions, which were legalized three years ago) seemed appropriate in the wake of yesterday’s post. Mexico City’s mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, is expected to sign the bill into law, changing the city’s civil code definition of marriage from the union of a man and a woman to the ‘free uniting of two people.’

The free uniting of two people — doesn’t that sound nice? The one dark spot is that Mexican President Felipe Calderon has said he will challenge the bill in the courts, but from what I can tell at least the country’s capital city seems like a pretty hip town when it comes to equal rights when it comes to marriage.

An article I read recently riffs on the notion that allowing homosexuals and bisexuals to marry would somehow negatively impact the sanctity of marriage by positing that us heterosexuals (or as commenter David would say, str8s) are doing a fine job of making marriage a joke.

[New York Senate Democrat Diane] Savino’s argument was shocking and fresh. After an affecting nod to gay constituents, she began her genuine work. She dared us to consider the condition of contemporary marriage.

The sanctity of marriage, she said, could not possibly be endangered by permitting its access to same-sex couples. If there is any threat to the sanctity of marriage, she said, ”it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right, and we have abused it for decades”.

”What are we really protecting?” she asked before reminding us that, these days, husbands could be snared on television game shows.

The article goes on to describe how trashing the dress makes a mockery of marriage and that brides and grooms are focusing on everything from the wedding favors to the flavor of the cake instead of putting their energy into the marriage itself. While I, to some extent, can get behind the second point — namely that there are some brides and grooms who go ga-ga over the wedding without really thinking about what marriage means, I really doubt those people are in the majority. Some people take marriage lightly, but thus far, all those people have been heterosexual. It might turn out that homosexuals and bisexuals do a better job of preserving the sanctity of marriage, if only because they had to work so much harder for it.

And I simply cannot get behind the first point. The wedding isn’t the marriage; one can have the most frivolous of weddings and the most serious of marriages. Wearing one’s wedding dress into a pond to capture what have now become fairly ordinary photographs doesn’t mean one is any less committed to one’s spouse. At most, it could mean one is less committed to one’s wedding dress. Weddings are made of ceremonies and celebrations that commemorate a commitment. They aren’t the commitment itself!

But yeah, divorce. If trashing the dress doesn’t negatively impact the sanctity of marriage and letting gay folks marry won’t negatively impact the sanctity of marriage, maybe it’s divorce? Maybe divorce itself is the problem?

After all, one of the most simplistic arguments against gay marriage suggests that allowing it would lead to more divorce, though it’s never specified whether that’s because there’d be a larger body of married people seeking out divorces or because all us heterosexuals would be running out to get divorced because we’re super psyched that we can marry within our own gender pool now. “Gay marriage is legal now? Oh, snap! I’mma get me one of those! Bye, honey. I loved you once, but the pull of the gay is too strong to resist!”

In any case, a more important question might be: Does it matter? Frankly, I don’t care if allowing homosexual couples to marry would lead to a higher divorce rate. I don’t actually care much if my fellow heterosexuals do all the divorcing, either. The right to marry, after all, is bundled with the right to divorce. At will. For pretty much any reason. And as terrible a thing as divorce can be, it’s also the institution — if I might call it that — that allows abused women and men to escape their abusers… allows children to grow up in homes that aren’t clouded by anger… allows two individuals who might be perfectly good people but aren’t *good together* to have a second chance at happiness.

Should all people have the right to marry the consenting adults they choose to marry? Abso-freaking-lutely. Should all people have the right to divorce the whomever they choose to divorce? Again, yeppers. Do either of those rights make a mockery of marriage? I don’t think so. And for goodness sake, can we all agree that trashing the dress is not leading to divorce? Because that’s just plain silly.

After a lengthy debate, the New York State Senate voted 38-24 against a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The Marriage Equality Act was finally brought to the floor for an up or down vote today after overcoming legislative roadblocks from opponents. During the emotional debate, one of the bill’s sponsors, State Senator Thomas K. Duane of Manhattan, who is gay, said, “This legislation would merely provide me and tens of thousands of other New Yorkers with equal rights in New York State. It would make me equal in every way to everyone else in this chamber.”

My mom is a New Yorker and she’s been waiting for a really long time to marry her partner, so this just really really really gets my goat.

Though cake toppers I can get behind are few and far between, I’m almost always in favor of the formation of a union between the humble cake topper and sweets. Particularly if said cake topper is made of chocolate, and especially if it’s made out of really, really nice chocolate.

For those same-sex couples thinking of marrying in or around Manhattan, Martine’s Chocolates, a popular New York City chocolatier, now offers three styles of same-sex matrimonial duos crafted from fine chocolate. The chocolate grooms come dressed in tuxedos and boutonnieres, while the brides come in two, ahem, flavors: romantic and contemporary. The romantic brides hold bouquets and wear billowing wedding gowns, while the contemporary brides toppers are clad in form fitting wedding dresses.

Yummy!

And here’s a fun aside. More people in the U.S. are playing for keeps when it comes to marriage, or at least stopping at just one. New Census data shows 76% of Americans who have ever been married have married just once, reflecting a choice to stay with their partner or to not remarry after divorce or the death of a spouse. Nearly 20% of Americans have married twice and only about 5% have married three or more times, according to USA Today.

Cleverly named wedding stationery OutVite (who happened to send me an e-mail a while back) sells custom printed invitations and other paper products designed for the LGBT community. As much as I want to cheer them on, I’m just not sure they are truly marketing to a niche market that has been ignored until now. Before I explain why, let me say that I am all for wedding stationery created for people who weren’t cut from the quasi-traditional Caucasian-bride-and-groom-in-their-early-20s mold. After all, my mother is engaged to be married to another woman, and I’m glad to see that she could get a wedding invitation with two brides on it if she in fact wanted one.

While a goodly number of OutVite’s designs feature two men, two women, two wedding dresses, two pairs of boxer shorts, and other graphics indicating that the participants in the wedding will be people who also happen to be homosexual, most of the invitation and wedding shower invite designs could be used by homosexual and heterosexual couples alike… just like most wedding stationery everywhere. Sure, some wedding stationery features a bride and groom motif, but lots more is embellished with simple bands of color, ribbons, logos, hearts and what-have-you, or other images, themes, and/or doo-dads.

Like I said, I’m definitely glad to see multi-bride or multi-groom or multi-whatever wedding invitations, shower invitations, response cards, and all that jazz. In fact, I’d like to see more of it! It’s not hard to find gorgeous wedding stationery, but it can be hard to find, say, gorgeous wedding stationery in different colors and designs that features the silhouettes of two women or two men. I guess that’s why I was a little disappointed in OutVite. I scrolled through seven pages of invitations, and only a handful were specifically geared toward homosexual couples. The rest were lovely, but not what I’d call “Gay and Lesbian Stationery.”

Unless it’s the stationery itself that’s homosexual, heh.

For two decades, Quakers in the UK — I’m not sure about the US, since individual Quaker congregations can set their own rules — have held religious blessings for same-sex couples. Now they’re poised to both begin performing actual marriage ceremonies and to petition the UK government to allow same-sex marriage, as opposed to the civil unions currently allowed.

The BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the Quakers had been more prepared than other groups to reinterpret the Bible in the light of contemporary life.

The Quakers – also known as The Religious Society of Friends – are likely to reach consensus on the issue of gay marriage without a vote at their annual gathering in York on Friday.

They will also formally ask the government to change the law to allow gay people to marry.

Quaker registrars, like rabbis and Church of England priests, have the authority to marry heterosexual couples on behalf of the state.

But many British Quakers feel it is wrong to exclude a religious commitment from civil partnerships and want the right to marriage extended to same-sex couples too.

This wonderfully forward move on the part of the Quakers may put them at odds with the government. Good, I say. Small pockets of acceptance eventually lead to wider acceptance. And the way the Quakers frame their support of same-sex marriage is just so lovely. For example, the Quakers of Westminster Meeting in the UK published this statement:

We affirm the love of God for all people, whatever their sexual orientation, and our conviction that sexuality is an important part of human beings as created by God, so that to reject people on the grounds of their sexual behaviour is a denial of God’s creation.

On Tuesday, Vermont became the fourth state in the US to legalize same-sex marriage. The really different thing this time is that Vermont is the first state to do it with a vote of the legislature.

A few days prior to the announcement, the Vermont legislature had voted to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, but were four short of the number of votes needed to override a veto by the governor. Governor Jim Douglas vetoed the bill on Monday. On Tuesday, several House members switched sides to override the veto. Vermont has no mechanism for a voter referendum to overturn the vote of the legislature.

In addition to this, and on the same day, the D.C. Council voted 12 – 0 to recognize legally performed same-sex marriages from other states. Washington D.C has recognized domestic partnerships created in other states, but this is the first time that same-sex marriages have been recognized by the governing body of the nation’s capitol.

In New Hampshire, the issue of same-sex marriage rights has passed the House and is now awaiting action by the Senate. Maine and New Jersey are also currently arguing the question in their legislatures. Here in my home state of California, the state Supreme Court must issue its ruling on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 which banned same-sex marriage by early June.

This is already a significant year for proponents and supporters of marriage equality. My personal hope is that 2009 will become even more significant well before it’s over.

Friday was a big day for supporters of marriage equality. That was the day the Iowa Supreme Court handed down its ruling in a four-year court battle, upholding a lower court decision declaring that a state law banning same sex marriage violates constitutional rights to equal protection.

Iowa lawmakers have “excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification,” the justices wrote.

To issue any other decision, the seven justices said, “would be an abdication of our constitutional duty.”

The county attorney who handled the defense case has said he does not intend to seek a rehearing. That means the only way to change this decision would be a Constitutional amendment. There are no known plans to do that during the current legislative session or the next, and the earliest such an amendment could reach public ballots is 2012.

In the meantime, Iowa same sex couples can expect to be issued marriage licenses as early as April 24.

At a news conference announcing the decision, plaintiff Kate Varnum, 34, introduced her partner, Trish Varnum, as “my fiance.”

“I never thought I’d be able to say that,” she said, fighting back tears.

Congratulations to Kate and Trish. Save a slice of cake for me.