Everything was perfect this morning. I was in the sunroom, relaxing in my recliner, watching The Golden Girls, drinking my coffee and eating my Raisin Bran. Jimmy was still in bed and both dogs were sleeping on my lap. The waterfall from the koi pond was dribbling in the distance and the birds were chirping outside.
Then it happened.
I got a Facebook invite to join some group called, “Marriage: One Man, One Woman.” EXCUSE ME? Let’s look at this invite from my perspective:
Jimmy and I have been partnered for almost 8 years and even if we wanted to get married, we couldn’t. Digging into the relationship a little further, you would find that not only do we share a bed TOGETHER, but we share a home TOGETHER. BOTH of the mortgages have BOTH of our names on them, HE is a 50% beneficiary on MY life insurance, BOTH of our names and BOTH of our vehicles are on the SAME car insurance policy, etc., etc., etc.
When my mother was hospitalized last year, Jimmy was right there at her bedside with me. At the end of this month, my son graduates from High School and we BOTH will attend the ceremony. When my niece got married earlier this month, and I was out of town on business and unable to attend, Jimmy went. Sounds just like a heterosexual marriage to me.
Suffice it to say that we are more than boyfriends, acquaintances, butt-buddies, or whatever else straight people decide to call us. We are PARTNERS in this thing we all call life….for good and bad, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, etc.
Now…let’s just stop and think for a moment. Let’s say I was in a car accident while on a vacation in Honolulu with Jimmy. Let’s say I had to be air-lifted to the hospital, unconscious, unable to make any medical decisions for myself. Let’s say Jimmy is battered a little, but is at the hospital, at my bedside. He tells the medical staff who he is. They tell him that, in essence, he has ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS. He cannot legally decide or advise them on ANYTHING related to my health or medical treatment. I’m laying there, possibly dying. The medical staff can’t reach my son, my mother, my sisters, my brother…nobody. Even if they could, Honolulu is a 9.5-hour flight from Atlanta. but Jimmy is right there, standing right in front of them, and because of YOUR heterosexual laws and beliefs, I could DIE while some stranger tries to contact a member of my family to get information that Jimmy could give to them right then and there!
Now….let’s stop and think about another situation….let’s say one of us has died and we have no legal documents as to the distribution of our assets. In a heterosexual marriage, the surviving spouse gets everything, decides everything, etc. In our relationship, neither of us have any rights to the house that we bought together, paid on the mortgages together, installed new windows in, laid hardwood floors in, decorated together, winterized together…the list goes on and on. Instead, the family of the deceased comes in and takes the house away from the surviving partner. I know they wouldn’t, but let’s just say they do. Neither of us has any rights to the house or anything in it. In this world we all live in, Jimmy and I have NO legal rights.
We don’t want to get married. We don’t want to march down the streets of Atlanta every June and declare our homosexuality. We don’t want to strut our sexual preference in people’s faces and we sure as hell don’t want to talk to you about what we do behind closed doors.
We have one of the nicest homes in our neighborhood. We have a meticulously manicured lawn which will only add value to our neighbors’ homes. We participate in the neighborhood yard sale every year, and you know what, you won’t find any dresses, wigs, high heels, or pearl strings in it either.
NOTHING has been given to us. We both have jobs. We both work VERY hard to provide for our gay selves. We pay our gay taxes just like everyone else. We spend our gay money in the same stores that everyone else does. Jimmy drives a pick-up and I drive a Hummer. Neither of us drive pink Beetles. We live our lives every day just like heterosexual couples do, except…we are two men who go to bed together at night. That’s the only difference.
It’s a shame that heterosexual spouses have every legal right to “take over” if something happens to the other. And all of this is because they are allowed to get married. They are allowed to have a piece of paper hanging on the wall that says they are LEGAL lifelong partners. But in our case, we are freaks. We are sex-crazed maniacs who are given a toaster oven every time we “convert” a hetero person to homosexuality (for the record, I have only one toaster oven, and I bought it with my gay money at Wal Mart, thank you very much).
No, as gay lifelong partners, we have to draft document after document after document just to decide what medical attention each other should get, or just so that we can keep what is ours, and what we have worked for years to obtain…TOGETHER.
Jimmy and I have no intention of ever getting married, but why can’t we be given the same rights and privileges as married heterosexual couples?
…and then I get a Facebook invite to join some fucking group called “Marriage: One man, One woman.” Do you still feel that gays shouldn’t have any legal rights? If so, you are cold, heartless, shallow, and not worth any more of my gay time.
