{"id":1445,"date":"2004-06-19T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2004-06-19T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/06\/19\/weddings\/"},"modified":"2004-06-19T04:00:53","modified_gmt":"2004-06-19T08:00:53","slug":"weddings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/06\/19\/weddings\/","title":{"rendered":"Weddings"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

   
\n
    I know that I’m supposed to be happy for my
\nfriends who are getting married, and on some level, I am.  But I
\ndon’t think the straight people in whose weddings I have been
\nparticipating understand how my happiness for them is inextricably tied
\nup in in anger about the whole process.  I don’t think they
\nunderstand how weddings and marriage, until they are fully inclusive of
\nqueer people who want them, discriminate against us and perhaps oppress
\nus.  <\/p>\n

    The whole language and set-up of weddings
\nimplies that people must be coupled to be complete, that without
\nsomeone else we are all incomplete.  It’s very much like the line
\nfrom the movie, “You complete me.”  As much as I love BF, if
\neither of us “completed each other”, I don’t think that I could
\nactually be in the relationship.  I was and am a complete person
\nwithout him, just as he was and is without me.  If the point of
\nall this
\nmarriage stuff is to find wholeness in another person (as much of the
\nritual and language often implies), then, frankly, it’s
\nunhealthy.  Some of the weddings I have been at in recent years
\nseem to be about the wedding; it’s as if people have determined that
\nthis is somehow the endpoint to which they have been working, not
\nrealizing that it’s really just a blip in their lives and happiness,
\nthat it will all continue on pretty much as before even after ALL the
\nVisa bills have been paid.<\/p>\n

    Also, as the only publicly out person at the
\nwedding, I’m alone in bearing this (which is why I keep ducking out to
\ncall BF and gay friends about every hour and a half).  There is
\nanother gay guy there, a close relative of the couple and good friends
\nwith them, and he’s out in a limited fashion, i.e., he’s told the
\ncouple but not his parents.  He lives in a gay ghetto, but when he
\ncomes to the Bay Area, he’s “not gay”, except in the privacy of the
\ncar, when it’s just the couple, him, and me.  And let’s be honest,
\nhe’s not fooling anyone: I had him pegged as “family” pretty quickly
\nafter seeing him.  But since he’s playing someone he’s not, he
\ndoesn’t have to bear a burden of understanding that as much as he’s a
\nmajor player in this whole process, he’s consigned to be “always a
\nbridesmaid, never a bride.”<\/p>\n

    Part of me feels pity for him.  As bad as
\nthings can get once you’re out of the closet, it’s still infinitely
\nbetter than the hell of the closet.  I know.  My own
\nrelationship with my parents has some pretty serious issues, as a
\nresult of my coming out.  (I have not seen them in a year and a
\nhalf, because they want me sans <\/span>BF,
\nand I’m not about to do that.)  But I would still rather have this
\nstate of affairs than to still be hiding from them — and myself.<\/p>\n

    Part of me feels annoyance.  He’s getting by,
\nnot having to make constant explanations, not having to be the token
\nfag in the proceedings.  But I’m trying to temper my anger at his
\nnot standing up and being counted and really understanding what it is
\nto be gay.  It’s not just about fucking and good decorating and so
\nforth.  Being gay is about understanding how almost never do you
\ntranscend for others the label of being gay.  It’s about
\nunderstanding what it means to be on the outs with the
\nmainstream.  It’s about better understanding the kingdom of
\nheaven, where there is no family except the brotherhood and sisterhood
\nof fellow humanity.<\/p>\n

    So to my straight friends who may be reading: 
\nI may or may not attend your weddings in the future.  (Let’s face
\nit: paying for getting to weddings also provides some large
\nobstacles.)  I may or may not be able to be in them if you ask
\nme.  I just don’t know how much more I can put up with
\nparticipating in to that which I am fundamentally uninvited, not by
\nyou, but by the world at large.  I want your happiness and love
\nand life to be full, but if you’re getting married, that’s already
\nhappened, and I can celebrate that somehow without actually being part
\nof weddings.  I’m still working out whether I can go to more
\nweddings, but please understand that your day of happiness makes me
\nhappy, pained, angry, and bitter, all at once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        I know that I’m supposed to be happy for my friends who are getting married, and on some level, I am.  But I don’t think the straight people in whose weddings I have been participating understand how my happiness for them is inextricably tied up in in anger about the whole process.  I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rmaunsdionmg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5G3PH-weddings","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}