“Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us together today. Wove, twue wove... So tweasure your woves fowever.” –The Clergyman in The Princess BrideI was recently educated about the apparently hugely famous Kardashians. I’ll tell you, this was after several occasions of meeting people upon which their first reaction to the news that I live in New York City was to emphatically ask if I’d ever seen a celebrity, at least one of the Kardashians, they’d say, and I’d reply, the who?
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| One of the three $20,000 wedding dresses that Vera Wang donated to the Kardashian wedding. |
WELL. The Kardashians are a family whose fame stems, as far as I can tell, from the patriarch having been the defense attorney in the O.J. Simpson trials in the mid-90s. And then there was Kim Kardashian’s sex tape (one of the daughters), the family’s subsequent reality TV show, a perfume and clothing line, the list goes on and on.
The most recent media explosion of the family's news is that Kim has decided to divorce her husband, after 72 days of blissful marriage. The embers of the celebrity gossip news columns still smoldering after the $10 million, star-studded, designer brand sponsored, TV sensationalized wedding, Ms. Kardashian would like everyone to know that she “would not have spent so much time on something just for a TV show” and that it was true love that inspired the marriage.
Be that as it may, there are many, many elements of this debacle that I find quite obnoxious, so I won’t spend more time on that specific event here. (I’m sure in glancing through any of the news on the wedding, you’ll find why it’s not worth the precious blahg space.) Instead, I would like to draw your attention to an alarming juxtaposition of this with some other current news.
Right now, in North Carolina, yet another legislative battle is ensuing with regard to a proposed state constitutional ban on same-sax marriage. While I feel confident that two generations down the line, my grandkids will scoff at the notion that two consenting adults, no matter their sex, were ever not allowed to marry, (similar, I would say, to the way that we now shake our heads in disbelief that it ever made sense to deem illegal the union of a black person and a white person), I wish we could move this issue along a little quicker. This senseless debate is getting old.
Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, a couple showered with praise, adoration, massive media attention, and HUGE amounts of money, have become a highly acclaimed symbol of marriage in the US, while these people are denied their rights entirely.
It’s time, friends, for us to truly and completely separate church and state (what a concept). And marriage, as a religious institution, should be taken out of the governmental sphere entirely. Really, the only argument that upholds the notion that same-sex couples cannot marry is that the religious institution of marriage stipulates that a couple may only be comprised of a man and woman.
As far as the government is concerned, the legal union between two consenting adults that grants them shared benefits is just that, and marriage can be left to the churches, temples, beaches, backyards, or any other wedding venue that a couple chooses to celebrate and recognize their union (should they choose to).
Don’t get me wrong: I think that the Kim Kardashians of the world should remain free to wed at their whim and will, unimpeded by any legal means or value judgments. Far be it for me to say what grown adults can or cannot vow to do. After all, at the end of the day, when two people (who are not me) freely decide they want to be legally bound to one another, with all of the glory and hardships that come along with that decision, it certainly does not affect my day, and what I think of that decision certainly should not affect theirs.
But if it really is the “sanctity of marriage” that is in question, people, it is not the same-sex couples of the world who we ought to be scrutinizing.
First of all, I completely agree that marriage should be removed as a state institution all together. The governemnt can give two people a civil union contract, and then they can go to their church of choice for the marriage bit. The "Sanctity of Marriage" argument always reminds me of a very memorable Thanksgiving at my Uncle's house, durring which my cousin decided it would be good dinner conversation to discuss politics and the gays. This was just as Prop 8 had been proposed and was being discussed, but long before the vote. My cousin was insisting that gay marriage would errode "traditional marriage", a cornerstone of morality and America. My father, the magnificent asshole that he is, asked my cousin how his wife was doing and how their marriage was, particularly how it would be threatened if two dudes or ladies got hitched. Everyone at the table was painfully aware that my cousin's marriage had failed less than 6 months ago after only about 2 years. The rest of the dinner was spent awkwardly trying to not die laughing, or glaring daggers at my dad, depending on whose side you were on. We left early, and haven't been invited back for a holiday dinner since. It is a perfect example of what I consider to be the ridiculousness of that particular argument, and also exemplifies how only very religious, usually fundamental Christians, make this argument.
ReplyDeleteSame-sax marriage. Don't know how I feel about that. Sounds harmonious enough...
ReplyDelete