Subject: Marriage: The Ultimate Perk -- Patricia Nell Warren Commentary
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 18:28:39 -0500

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NEWS YOU DIDN'T SEE ON TV               ****************************
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Commentary by Patricia Nell Warren    ****************************
              
12/13/96                                                  ********************
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MARRIAGE: The Ultimate Perk

By Patricia Nell Warren 

For months now, the news has echoed with angry sound bytes from enemies of
same-sex marriage.  Homosexual nuptials, it's being said,  will tarnish the
"sanctity" of heterosexual marriage.  

Gosh, do these folks ever read the newspaper?  Or a history book?  Marriage
has already been deeply de-sanctified by centuries of festering heterosexual
pragmatism.

Admittedly my views are colored by experience.  For 16 years I tried to be
the perfect straight wife...gave it the old college try.  But I never felt
sacred -- just felt more and more stifled and dishonest.    When my
homophobic spouse finally  found out, he told me I was "sick."  My first and
only visit to a shrink revealed that he shared my spouse's opinion.  So  I
ran for my life -- divorce and coming out.   
 
Apologists for "traditional values" seem to forget the real history of
marriage. Christian civilization was built by royalty and nobility who saw
marriage as dynastic.   People wedded for titles, wealth, feudal estates,
vassals, heirs -- to link empires and win wars.  Lifelong compulsory monogamy
and chastity belts were invented to ensure that a husband passed his power
only to his genetic offspring.  While these marriages were sprinkled in holy
water by ministers of "heaven", many of them were made in hell -- as the
tortured histories of blueblood families can tell us.   

When the American Revolution separated church and state, it also separated
marriage from church control. Marriage became basically a civil arrangement.
 Today, many American nuptials still start with church bells. But the
"sanctity" of civil marriage is arguable, since it boils down to a list of
heterosexual legalities that judges can rule on. These include inheritance
rights,  tax breaks, hospital visitation, pensions, joint custody -- all
 things that homosexuals want too, and are told they can't have, in the name
of "sanctity."   Since when do the arbiters of "holiness" include probate
courts, hospital receptionists, company pension plans and the IRS?

Americans also rely on marriage for certain perks and conveniences.   For
minors, getting married is a way of evading parental custody.  For
embarrassed parents of a pregnant teen, shotgun marriage (hopefully)
preserves  the family honor.  Marriage can get you free airline travel, a
dental plan,  diplomatic privileges, free housing on military bases, U.S.
citizenship, the boss's daughter, and slave labor in the form of lots of
kids.  Marriage routinely enhances a celebrity career, even serves as cover
for some CIA intelligence work.  Repeated marriage-and-divorce allows some
folks to cloak sexual adventure in legality.  Years of living together in
"common law" can equal marital status, or at least get you a nasty "palimony"
lawsuit.  To the man or woman who marries for nice things, marriage may equal
prostitution.  

Are these profane perks protected by state and federal law?  Yes.  Are they
sacred?  Hardly.   It is amusing to think how many heterosexual Americans
would scream bloody murder  if they lost their "right" to this array of
conveniences.  Yet they would turn around and deny those same perks to gay
people.

Closet marriages go beyond perk, into prevarication.  "Closet" is how
homosexuals historically conformed to the old feudal mandate.  Nobody tries
harder to make marriage work, than a fag or dyke or bi who is hell-bent to
pass!  We have even pumped out children to be cannon fodder for  feudalism.
 Indeed, the gay community's love of  drag and theater may be instilled in us
by long centuries of performing with that sword held to our throat.  But an
Oscar-winning act is still an act, no matter how brilliantly sequinned in
"sanctity" it might be.  

Interestingly enough, homosexuals don't have monopolize the closet.  Marriage
is a good place for certain straights to hide too.  Like the prostitute with
heart of gold who hides her past by marrying Mr. Respectable with heart of
gold.  Or the "missing person" who hides in a marriage to start a new life,
and cover the trail.   Or the straight military man who grudgingly marries to
advance his career, because the brass don't like to promote bachelors to
admiral.

Marriage has no global agreement about what makes it "sacred."  It's social
silly-putty,  squished into a thousand shapes by bias and blind belief.  To
the Israelites of the Ten Commandments, "sanctity" of marriage included
polygamy, and a man's right to kill his wife and children if they got out of
line. To feudal lords, the "sacredness" of a serf wedding required the bride
to give her virginity to the lord.  To the American colonists, a woman could
work her way into marriage through contract labor or being an indentured
servant.  To Southern slaveowners, marriage was out of bounds for black
people. To my Irish Catholic forebears, the marriage knot required a priest's
"authority".  To my Protestant forebears, Catholic sacraments were "evil
popery," so only a preacher's words could authorize the knot.  But to bride
and groom on the high seas, a ship captain's authority is "sacred" enough. 

Some of my native American forebears had more sensible views.  A couple stood
before Creation and married each other on their own authority as human
beings. They had no concept of being married by the power of some other
person's religion or authority.  "Nobody tells a Cheyenne what to do," my
cousins used to say.  If things went bad, all the aggrieved person had to do
was put the partner's moccasins outside the teepee door...with the toes
pointing away.   

Can today's American marriage overcome its sorry history as a list of perks?
 Can a person today make it sacred and wonderful?  

Yes, I believe so. Real sacredness is infused into any relationship only by
the two people themselves, be they straight or gay.  They build a balance
between their own self-respect and their respect for each other -- and for
their children, if they have them.  If this sacredness is not deeply felt on
the personal level, no  law or sermon or tax break can put it there!   Not
even God and Goddess!  

Not every heterosexual wants wants this kind of relationship.  Not every
homosexual does either. But those who do deserve the best that marriage can
offer.

So yes...marriage in the '90s is darkly tarnished. But denying marriage to
gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people will not untarnish it!

Heterosexuals have to take responsibility for the mess they've made of
marriage.   They were the ones who wanted to have marriage.  They have spent
3000 years making it a juggernaut of Judaeo-Christian empire, politics,
patriarchy, property, including their "right" to control of wife, children
and genetic heritage.  Now, in the ultimate paradox, heterosexuals may
actually need  the help of us homosexuals, if they want to put some
sacredness back in marriage.

Patricia Nell Warren is author of "The Front Runner" and other bestselling 
books, as well as a widely published commentator.  Her publisher is Wildcat
Press. Copyright (c) 1996 by Patricia Nell Warren. All Rights Reserved. 

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