Yesterday, Friday, the 24th of June, 2011, Gay Marriage was finally legalized in New York State, making it the 6th state to do so. Tomorrow is Gay Pride Day and the Parade will be bigger and better than ever! I'm so thankful that all the people who needed to come around finally did, to pass this fantastic law.
Included in this post are photos I took at the parade back in 2007. Look at how happy everyone was, when they still couldn't marry... I can only imagine how happy a day tomorrow will be!
I won't try to get too personal or too political in the post, or on this blog in general, and I am well aware that this has little, if nothing, to do with artwork, but I feel strongly about this decision. An expression of love, is still self expression, after all.
Gay couples across America, not just in the Village, or in Chelsea, or in San Francisco or South Beach, but everywhere, have been begging and pleading and trying to convince officials to legalize homosexual marriage, not civil unions, marriage, for decades. Well, we are one state closer to getting the whole country on board- and it's a big one!
Thinking about it rationally and as non objectively as possible, I believe this will help America's marriage statistics, which are going downhill and have been going downhill, for what seems like forever. Don't quote me on this, but a huge percentage of marriages, heterosexual marriages, something along the lines of half, end in divorce. Now, these things happen. Marriage is available for anyone and everyone, and has been available to anyone and everyone who is straight, and above the age of 18.
This includes drunk people during bachelor parties, strippers, celebrities on drugs, and knocked up 19 year olds who's religious parents force them into it to avoid their own shame, to name a few. ANYONE, basically, and for SO long, our government decided to overlook and then deny same sex couples, some already together for decades, some with children, the same right as everyone else, the simple right to marry each other.
Now that homosexuals can marry in one more state, after being denied for so long, isn't it likely they will stay together, and not get divorced? Since many of them have been waiting the better part of their relationship to get married? Why fight tooth and nail your whole life for something if it's not going to mean anything in a few years? A couple can be together, living together, day in day out, for decades, and never have had the right to get married. Now they can. Won't they continue to live happily in their relationship, only made stronger by the bond of marriage? This blogger certainly thinks so.
When a community as large as the gay community in this country, asks so willingly of their government for a simple right, a right that everyone else has except them, and is repeatedly denied, it makes me question the leaders of this country, not to mention sick to my stomach.
They are not asking for money, they are not asking for weapons, they are not asking for or oil or gas or even less taxes! They are asking to have a wedding, in front of their families and friends, who love and support them, and to take those vows, to love each other, through good times and bad, for better and for worse, and that, my friends, is the most beautiful right to receive at long last. There are much much much worse things the government could be doing, than letting these happy couples vow to love one another for the rest of their lives. Much worse.
That's why I'm tearing up right now thinking about how happy this has made millions of people. Yes, it's only one more state, but it's my state, and I couldn't be more proud to live here at a time like this. The MTA can continue to take all my money, Bloomberg can continue to deny the homeless epidemic all he wants, public schools can continue to fire half their teachers and cut most of their budget, but now I can say that everyone who wants to get married has the right to do so, everybody, and that, my friends, makes my heart burst with joy.
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