Daily Archives: July 21, 2013

Congrats to Dave and Mark!

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I totally lifted this from Facebook.

I totally lifted this from Facebook.

The end of June was huge for the United States with the Supreme Court of the United States ending the Defence of Marriage Act and putting a stop to the Proposition 8 challenge, for now.

With this, it opened up marriage again in California for many same-sex couples.

One of these couples includes our friends Dave and Mark.

As a result of these changes – July 20th, 2013 is their wedding day. Mark and Dave have been together for about the same amount of time as Scott and I have.

This is also huge for Dave and Mark as it reduces the worries about Mark staying in the United States.  With DOMA being thrown out, it means Mark, a Canadian citizen, can apply to stay in the United States permanently.  This is a couple that has one less worry about whether or not Mark will be allowed to stay in the US.  They still have the green card process to get through, but it should be considerably easier now that their relationship is recognised.

Couples, families, have less worries about being torn apart because their relationships are now recognized.  They’re no longer invisible.  And writing this has me tearing up. *GRIN*

I think Canadians have somewhat taken marriage equality for granted.  It’s almost like it was a shoe in – we’re Canada, good things happen here.  But witnessing the struggle that Americans have had, and what Dave and Mark have had to go through for years, it has really made me take stock of what we have up here in Canada and realize that it’s not something to be taken for granted.

Dave and Mark will be at our wedding in August.  Please be sure to congratulate them when you meet them.

 

UK Upgraded from Civil Union to Marriage!

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The United Kingdom finally ushered in a new era of marriage equality this week with the House of Lords approving legislation.

I find the UK case interesting as the UK already had Civil Unions.  However, many people have called for actual marriage.  Why?

From the Q&A link above –

Civil partnership is a legal relationship exclusively for same-sex couples, distinct from marriage. It offers the same legal treatment as marriage across a range of matters, such as inheritance, pensions provision, life assurance, child maintenance, next of kin and immigration rights. Opposite-sex couples can opt for a religious or civil marriage ceremony, whereas a same-sex partnership is an exclusively civil procedure. Couples in civil partnerships will be able to convert their relationships into marriages if they wish – but they will be under no obligation to do so if they would rather retain their civil partnership.

So, in many respects it is the same thing – except why call it something different for something that is pretty much the same?

I’ve actually suggested that maybe “civil union” and “marriage” be two different parts of a wedding.  Civil union being the legal representation, the formality of all the government paperwork that’s got to be done; where marriage would be the church-side of things.  That way everyone has a “civil union”, and you can choose to have the “marriage ceremony”.

That is a loaded subject.

As a British citizen, I am very proud of the UK finally taking things to the next level for marriage equality.  It actually means it would be easier for Scott to become a British Citizen and easier for both of us to move to the UK if we wanted to.  We don’t have any plans to at this point, but it would be a fun experience.

An interesting thing to note – I’ve shifted my use of language from calling it “gay marriage” to “marriage equality”.  It’s a term I picked up, courtesy of Michelangelo Signorile, a well known activist and Sirius-XM Out Q personality.

There really is nothing gay about what Scott and I are going to do, really.  Ok, we happen to be two men who happen to be gay getting married.  But it’s about levelling the playing field and creating equality for same sex couples.  Thankfully, in Canada, we’ve had marriage equality for 10 years.