My spouse and I celebrated our second year-as-married anniversary on April 4. That date coincided with a situation earlier that week in the State of Indiana where the Governor signed a law (at a closed signing ceremony attended by noted homophobes) that essentially permitted anyone to deny providing services to anyone else if they felt that serving that other person violated their religious beliefs. It was widely believed the new Indiana law was a hateful demonstration of anti-gay feelings among conservative legislators.
Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, many thought that the Indiana law was an extreme example of negative backlash against federal court judicial action that is requiring states to permit same-sex marriage even though their conservative leadership and majority of constituents do not want to allow it.
It was rather interesting to me, using my academic observation perspective, to see that a post that I made on social media, here:
… had such a huge response!
The vast majority of my “friends” on this social media platform are family, co-workers, long-time professional colleagues, biker buddies, and friends & neighbors I have known for decades. I estimate that 99% of my “friends” are straight. As I’ve said before, I don’t make friends based on sexual orientation. Whether they are gay or straight doesn’t matter. What matters to me is who they are and what we have in common — familial bonds, professional activities and interests, and hobbies.
There were 151 “likes” and 45 written comments of support to that social media post about our second-year anniversary. That is a huge response considering how that social media platform makes it harder to see stuff once posts are more than 30 minutes old.
I can’t help but think that such a huge response to a rather mundane post came from my straight family and friends wanting my spouse and me to know that they support us and wish us well. We both appreciate that. It was particularly meaningful to me that my immediate family all “liked” the post and some of them commented to wish us well.
It was also insightful to me, and not surprising at all, that none of my “Ultra-Catholic” cousins said anything or “liked” the post. After all, our marriage anniversary this year was the Saturday before Easter. The strong-believing Catholics in my family just couldn’t show any support of same-sex marriage, especially so close to such an important-to-them religious holiday. I expected that, and really don’t care about their religion’s point-of-view on the matter. Obviously, I don’t share it.
Regarding the so-called “religious freedom” laws being considered or enacted — my spouse and I have been expecting such a negative backlash. It is a shame, though, that some neanderthals continue to refer to being gay as a “chosen lifestyle.” It is truly sad that these undereducated dolts do not understand (or want to recognize) the difference between a “lifestyle” and being born with a certain sexual orientation.
Also, my spouse and I have always felt that if some establishment made it clear that they didn’t like gay people or same-sex marriage, that we would choose services from a different provider. Really … why would any gay person want to give business to a company led by people who don’t like or downright hate us? My spouse and I never would be “those gays” who would take a business to court for discrimination. Heck, if Pizza Joint A wouldn’t deliver pizzas to our Big Gay Wedding, then Pizza Joint B would. End-of-story. Let Pizza Joint A live with its business decisions, and suffer the consequences of those choices.
Suffice for social commentary on the matter. I just found this situation interesting.
Life is short: live freely and marginalize hypocrites.
Congratulations on your marriage anniversary! I wish you and your hubby many continued years of happiness, good and better health and wealth. I hope to be reading this blog of yours many years in the future and to see you both continuing to flourish.
It is a sadness that not everyone can view your happiness through the same lens, particularly your family members. I hope they will soon come around and that they will sincerely and fully join in commemorating your happiness. But some throughout are society are particularly myopic in the way they choose to react. The law you mention in Indiana is particularly bad, not just from the viewpoint of how it will effect the lives of gays and lesbians, but also for the dangerous way it will legitimize all types of bigotry due to a perceived ‘held religious value’. There are plenty of circumstances where it may not be possible to choose another company, store or business to work with. Sometimes you just get ‘stuck’. So what will happen if a pharmacist decides that he or she won’t dispense medicines or drugs because doing so may violate the dispenser’s religious values? Or if a business won’t do transactions with an unaccompanied woman unless she returns with her husband – and marriage license to prove their marriage? There are some ‘religions’ that don’t accept people of particular races. What if those businesses decline to do work with them? Indiana, but not only Indiana, is opening the Pandora’s box which they (and we) will regret opening again and again and again.
But all of that is for consideration for some other time. For right now, I wish you (both) Happy Second Anniversary!