Marriage is such a powerful noun used as a verb. It's used to define so much of our society. Ultimately though, it's the one way we can show another person that we totally accept them. And we fight for it so hard because it's means that good and bad we are accepted by another person. Unconditional love and the association of marriage really equals acceptance.
Some people forget that marriage is work, because the other person promised to accept us good and bad. We get upset when suddenly that acceptance is fading or wayning. The love and the passion can understandably come and go, shrink and grow in intensity from day to day as long as we know the underlying acceptance is still there.
So it stands to reason, that when we tell a person they are not going to be allowed to be accepted, that they will revolt. Gay marriage is not about a piece of paper or civil union. It's slicing at the heart of what we as individualls and a society hold dear. It's not just saying we don't accept you for being gay, it's saying we don't accept you and we won't allow anyone else to accept you either. It's not berating their love or what they do in the bedroom, that's easy to turn a deaf ear towards. It's not saying you can have the same thing but call it "Civil Unions" instead of "Marriage" as a reasonable alternative because underneath it all, its one person telling someone else they cannot play in our world.
If there is a day when you find someone wondering, why can't they just be happy with civil unions, or not understanding why they the gay community needs marriage, ask them how they felt when they were not accepted to a club they really wanted to be in. Ask them to remember how it felt to be unaccepted by the popular kids crowd, or feel ashamed to eat at the popular kids table. Ask a parent to remember how it felt to have your child come home crying because the kids were mean to them, and there were no words to console or bruises to heal.
Sometimes we will not approve of who our own children will marry, but we get no say so of their choices. So why are some to pompous to think they can have say so over total strangers?
It all comes down to acceptance, it's emotional and it's intesne, it's raw and necessary. Marriage is not a club. It's a social statement that one person has accepted another person for the good bad and ugly. If you don't want to accept them, then don't buy them an anniversary card.
