Once a week, I post a quote that I’ve read/heard recently. So here’s this week’s Quote I love …

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about marriage. My anniversary was last week. My partner and I celebrate from our first date in high school. We both dated other people after that (when you’re bisexual, it sometimes takes time to figure things out in your own head), but we were in love, even then. One of the things Rosie would love in life is to be married to me. Too bad the US government and far too many citizens of the great state of Ohio don’t want that outcome.

I also wrote a short story for I DO TWO, a charity anthology in support of marriage equality. (Side note: if it isn’t selected for the book, I may post it as free fiction on my site in January). So, it’s been on my mind lately.

I’ve never been a huge supporter of marriage licenses. I don’t think couples need a legal document to be committed and spend a life together. But I have to say, it irks me to no end that I can’t give the love of my life one of the things she desires most, that I’m not legally allowed to marry the person I share a home with, a dining room table with, a bed with, a life with. We’ve lived together for 18 years.

Here’s one of the statements I read after Maine voters repealed a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. It reminded me there are many straight people who care, who have made the cause their cause too.

“I sat in my hotel room and watched the sun rise from my eighth-story window and cried. I wished I had done more.

But a new day was dawning. A different day and a new fight for marriage equality. It will soon be time again for us as Mainers and as a nation to come together. Gay or straight, the fight is in each one of us, and we must take it. We must.”

Dana Hernandez
A straight white married mother of two young children
Reporting Election Night outcomes for Advocate.com

Thank you to Dana and everyone who cares enough to realize this isn’t about your marriage or taking something from you, it’s about giving a basic right to others. A basic right that grants so many other rights to the couple the minute they are married. Rights my partner and I can’t duplicate, no matter how much money we give to our attorney to draft legal documents. Marriage in the US offers over 1,000 Federal rights and benefits. And this does not include the hundreds more offered by every state.

Thanks for stopping by today,
Sloan Parker
twitter.com/SloanParker