★
BY SALLY SHEKLOW
★ ★
D is for DAD!
Just Desserts
Civil unions lack nutritional value.
’
I
T
he route to freedom isn’t straight. Ha ha. Queer people know that the way to
our just desserts is to be out, visible and active. We have to keep being here,
being queer and getting everybody used to it. I still come out at very opportu-
nity, still share my wedding photos with friends, coworkers and the person in front of
me in line at the post office. And I vote.
We all know the marriage equality vs. civil unions debate is more than mere se-
mantics. Discrimination is unappetizing. Prejudice is distasteful. Segregation is unsa-
vory. Civil unions are looking tired and wilted on the serving tray. Bring on the feast.
Get Yo Daddy Some PIE!
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ve totally changed my mind about civil unions.
Back when Vermont first offered up a steaming
platter of separate and almost equal, my gal
and I joyously hopped a cross-country plane to cel-
ebrate our friends’ nuptials. We sang, we toasted
the brides, we drenched our hankies. But now
that I’ve sampled marriage equality, I’m hungry
for the whole enchilada.
I want my equal marriage rights and I want ’em
now. I used to think that if they’re serving civil
unions, I should be grateful and take a helping. But civil
unions have little nutritive value. Who wants synthetic, half-
baked, marriage lite? Even with added medical benefits and bereavement leave, civil
unions aren’t marriage. They don’t include scads of privileges and protections that
come with real, aka legal, marriage. Regardless of how many equal-ish perks are
rolled into a civil union serving, I wont be satisfied.
Why settle for discrimination? Am I any less wedded than my het neighbors? How
much morning breath, blanket hogging, and peculiar showering habits do I have to
love, honor, and cherish before my relationship is legally equal? Come on — look at me
and my domestic partner, cruising the aisles of the home improvement center,
munching popcorn in front of the TV, wearing each others sweats — we are soooo
married.
Civil unions shouldn’t even be on the menu. We’re done with the appetizers. I hate
to turn my back on a good hors d’oeuvre, but how can I be fulfilled with civil crudités
when I see marriage flambée served to everyone else? I’m tired of watching hets
scarf down the prime rib while me and my homeys gnaw celery sticks. We’re not get-
ting fed, just fed up.
Luckily, millions of friends and allies support marriage equality. Even not particu-
larly gay-friendly folks approve of us gays and lesbians taking vows, but for some
dumb reason they don’t want to call it marriage. Calling our commitments civil unions
is more acceptable to a lot of people. Could the objection really be a simple matter of
vocabulary? Can separate ever be equal? Call me a valley girl, but I don’t THINK so!
Consider the future. We are never going to get a classic hit song out of love and
civil union, love and civil union, go together like a … what? Wine and communion?
That’s going to fly about as far as Sally Fields without her nun habit.
Even if naming our marriages civil unions is a step up from no recognition at all,
that strategy misses the point. It would be like calling a sizzling platter of shrimp
scampi slaughtered sea-scavengers in churned bovine secretions. Who would eat
that?
While people argue over terminology, wannabe-married couples are getting impa-
tient for equal helpings of health insurance, retirement benefits, tax exemptions and
every single one of those 1,049 state and federal rights we’ve heard so much about.
I’m sending marriage discrimination back to the kitchen to disintegrate under consti-
tutional scrutiny like the sodomy laws did one year ago this month (yay!).
If we keep shining the heat lamp of reason on it, you know marriage discrimination
will melt away. As the Wicked Witch reminded Dorothy, all in good time, my pretty.
that
pays to
be me
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