For Whom the Wedding Bells TollBy Christian de la Huerta October, 2008.
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I was brought up in a very Catholic family, one of nine children, further evidence that the Vatican Roulette is not very effective. My teenage years were basically one long depression. Deeply conflicted about my budding, seemingly uncontrollable sexuality, and the religion which utterly denied it, I eventually had to choose between who I was and the religion in which I was raised. At 19 I fell in love for the first time, and I discovered the difference between having sex and making love. The choice was clear, and the rest is history.
Even as I developed a sense of identity as a gay man, and my self knowledge and self acceptance deepened, it never occurred to me that I could get married. Not once. Clearly that was not an option for people like me.
Right around that same time my older sister got married. In fact, we actually left home within a few days of each other. In retrospect, the contrast is startling. My sister enjoyed a big wedding and reception, tons of presents, and the love, support and acknowledgment of family and friends. My first lover and I slunk out of our respective homes in secrecy, dragging behind my old Nova a small U-Haul filled with all our earthly possessions. Instead of starting out our relationship with multiple toasters and new dishware, we had a few mismatched plates and utensils our mothers had gotten together as we left to be "college roommates." At the time, the inherent unfairness never crossed my mind.
Marriage has a religious sacramental component, and it also has a more social, ritualistic element. The parties involved get to express their love and their commitment to each other in front of their circle of friends and family, as well as the Powers that Be. There is power in that.
And yes, gifts help a young couple get started on their life together!
Is it possible that the "bonds" of marriage, including their five kids, have supported my sister and her husband to stay together. My first lover and I, in a relationship bound by secrecy and eventual struggle with his family, parted ways after three years.
One of the ways queer people serve society at large is by fulfilling several spiritual roles and functions which I outline in Coming Out Spiritually (Tarcher/Putnam, 1999). We are outsiders, mediators, healers, scouts of consciousness and agents of change, among other things. We propel society's forward movement and help it decide what its limits are. We take ten steps in a given direction and then the rest of society will look at us and say: "Well, we don't know about ten steps, but we might take three or four." Marriage is a perfect example. Just by virtue of being who we are and by (some of us) wanting to be included in that institution, we are forcing society-at-large to re-evaluate the institution of marriage.
In the past few years there has been endless discussion in the media and around the water cooler about marriage; a barrage of articles and several books have been published analyzing its history. Suddenly everyone knows that, for example, marriage was not made a church sacrament until the 1200s. At the same time that politicians rant about the "sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman," by now many of us are aware that originally it was about property and paternity, economics and politics, that romantic marriage is in fact a very recent development in human history. We know there is a difference between civil and religious marriage. In forcing all of us to ask the question, "What is marriage for and what does it mean to be married?," queers serve the greater good. Even if painful, arriving at the truth is always good. Yet, being lighting rods always seems to land us in trouble and we end up as scapegoats.
My own perception of marriage also experienced an evolution. First I idealized and romanticized it in my youth, while seeing it as untenable because of my sexual orientation. Many years and several relationships later, when the issue of civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians began to rise in the public consciousness, I decided that marriage was not for me. I considered marriage a heterosexist construct, a patriarchal invention to establish paternity, determine inheritance and property rights, establish the dominance of man over woman. I had no use for any of that.
Then, a few years ago I attended the commitment ceremony of my friends David and Alfredo. Surrounded by friends and family in a beautiful San Francisco garden on a gorgeous afternoon, they were witnessed by their loved ones as they professed their love for each other. I was profoundly moved by the ceremony, which was officiated by an openly gay retired Episcopal bishop and an openly gay Episcopal deacon.
That afternoon, for the first time in my life, I decided that perhaps some day I might like to get married. For some straight people this might be hard to comprehend. Things like the right to get married or the right to hold your beloved's hand in public without fear of threat or personal endangerment are taken for granted by most people in our society. That is what constitutes a heterosexist society. Most gays and lesbians have spent a lifetime having to translate song lyrics, poetry, movies or novels to fit our experience. Then suddenly, surprisingly, unexpectedly for most of us, marriage for lesbians and gays leapt to the forefront and heart of the culture wars, polarizing many and becoming a wedge issue at all levels of the political process.
When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom courageously opened the door to same sex marriage early in the year, my partner and I seriously considered joining the 4000 or so same-sex couples who rushed to take advantage of what we all knew would be a limited opportunity. Yet the more he and I thought about it, our sense was that we were not ready. "If it wasn't for this window of opportunity which will close at some point," we agreed, "we would choose to wait." We decided to do just that.A couple of weeks later, Bush came out publicly in support of amending the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between a man a woman. I was angered. I thought: "I work hard and pay taxes; I am an American citizen and love this country. What right does he have to keep this from me?"
I was on a business trip and called my (now-ex) partner from the road. In what was probably one of the least romantic proposals I history, I said: "Look. I know we talked about this but I've been thinking. Wanna get married? It won't be the "real" one, but perhaps more of a political statement. We can think of it as our ‘engagement' and then have the real spiritual ceremony a year from now."
What ensued over the next few days was interesting, and surprising. "Stuff" came up. One thing was to look at marriage theoretically and another to stare directly at its possibility. Practical questions came up we had not even considered or thought about. We both knew, for example, that once hitched we would share all property accrued from the time of the marriage, but what about debt previously accrued? Would I be responsible for my partner's debt too? And then, of course, the real question: Is he really "the one?"
A part of the heterosexual condition which had previously eluded me suddenly dawned on me. When marriage became a possibility, I realized that, in part, I was scared of the prospect of getting married. The depth of the commitment, the legal entanglements, the sense of responsibility in the face of friends and loved ones, suddenly took on a different dimension. Sure, there are over 1400 benefits that committed partners in same-sex relationships are denied that their opposite-sex counterparts take for granted. Sure, I believe that to deny someone the right to visit their loved one in the hospital or to inherit the home they both have been paying down for years is unfair, discriminatory and unconstitutional.
But I wasn't prepared for the jarring sense of "Oh my God! What am I getting into here?" — the feeling of terminal conclusiveness that so many have felt as they approached (or ran away from) getting hitched. I understood for the first time what countless heterosexual males and, as depicted in "Runaway Bride," not a few females, have felt when marriage looms. It actually help me understand the heterosexual experience.
While wrestling with all those questions, the California Supreme Court halted the process. The window had closed. I felt both sadness and disappointment, as well as, to be totally honest, a little relief. Four years later, the newly acquired legal right to marriage established by California's highest court is being challenged by a proposed amendment to the constitution.
For the past four years America has been exposed in the media to images of ecstatic same-sex couples in Massachusetts and California as they make their unions official. I hope that enough people in California have seen them and realized that ultimately, all humans are the same, regardless of superficial characteristics like skin pigmentation, ethnic background, or what's between our legs or what we do with that. We all want to love and to be loved, to have our fundamental needs met, to strive for meaning in our lives.
My ex and I kept working on our relationship for some time, eventually deciding to separate. Though we never fell out of love, we had agreed from the very beginning that if at any point we felt the relationship was interfering with either partner's growth, that would be the time to go our separate ways. Last year we decided that individuation was the highest good for us both, and remain friends, brothers.
I think back to that afternoon when David and Alfredo's love got witnessed by all, and to the ceremony I recently officiated for my friends Evan and Andrew. It was as if the birds and the clouds overhead were joining in the celebration of human love and no one cared about the gender of the happy couple.
In an example that queers do not have an exclusive on the spiritual archetypes of which I write, one "post-matrimonial" hetero couple I know is taking things a step further and redefining marriage for themselves. They took their rings, as well as their symbolic possession of each other, tied them to a helium balloon, and released them back to the Great Mystery. Yet, the truth is they remained married legally, and enjoy the many benefits of that.
Which is the point.
