“Mawwiage …”

BD passes along this meme:

Copy this sentence into your Livejournal/Blog if you’re in a heterosexual marriage, and you don’t want it “protected” by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Any two or more people who choose to enter into the bonds of a loving, committed relationship in an open, public manner will only make us smile and strengthen our own bond. 

*raises a glass to everyone who’s married, whether legally or in their hearts and the eyes of their god(s), everyone who’s getting married, everyone who’d like to get married in a legally recognized fashion, but can’t because of silly laws–and, for that matter, everyone who’s self-aware enough to look at themselves and realize that such commitments aren’t right for them at this time or who doesn’t feel the need to be so public about it–just because it works for us doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone*

Okay: Any two or more people who choose to enter into the bonds of a loving, committed relationship in an open, public manner will only make us smile and strengthen our own bond. 

Now, not being willing to leave well enough alone, I’ll note some caveats and observations:

1. “Loving, committed relationship” obviously excludes age-inappropriate marriages (not to mention a number of other bugaboos of the Right when it comes to same-sex marriage questions). What’s appropriate or inappropriate has, of course, varied wildly over the centuries, despite the cry of “eternal standards of traditional marriage” from the social conservatives. There’s times I’m tempted to suggest the age of consent for marriage should be raised to thirty … but that’s a topic for another day.
2. “Two or more people” obviously includes polygamy, which is usually one of those slippery slope sorts of arguments again advanced by the Right. Again, a topic for another day, but practical considerations and difficulties for long-term stability aside, it’s no skin off my nose; such relations have every likelihood of being as true or truer to the spirit of marriage as some binary man-woman relationships we can point to on a daily basis. That said, current gay marriage struggles are not about polygamy; address that issue when it actually comes up.

The point of this, of course, is that what two other people choose to call their marriage doesn’t necessarily affect mine. And happy couples tend to spread happiness. So leave ’em the heck alone, all you Prop. 8 agitators out in California. Concentrate your energies on keeping your own marriages happy and healthy, and you’ll probably do more good for yourselves and society than you do trying to keep other folks from having happy marriages.

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam…