Marriage Equality

Marriage Equality is one of those things that has become important for the LGBT community.  Yet marriage equality is not just limited to a straight/queer binary.  The ability to marry someone you love is not an issue that just effects queer people.  Sometimes a lot of other people have issues with whom they want to marry.

As some may know and others do not, I am Jewish.  Being queer, trans, and jewish person is a lot to deal with.  But before I transitioned I was once engaged to be married.  In the process of planning the wedding we searched for a suitable Rabbi or marriage celebrant that would take our desire for a Jewish wedding into account.

That was easier said than done.  Because I was and still am a progressive jew and a convert to judaism and my then partner would be termed an modern orthodox jew.  Our potential marriage created a number of issues, about who was willing to perform the ceremony, whether we would have it inside or outside a synagogue or whether, more importantly, would our marriage be recognised as legitimate by members of our community and by the wider community.

At the crux of the marriage equality debate is the fact that would same sex marriages be legitimate.  Because what I am getting at is that, even under the current system not all marriages are equal or real.  While current marriages may have a legal recognition, many people do not recognize marriages that they see as  intermarriages.

A lot of the opposition to marriage equality is often framed in christian ideology.  So what happens if  you are not christian and want to get married?  Is christian marriage the only legitimate marriage available?

Marriage equality is not just limited to queer people.  Sometimes it effects people in the strangest ways and not in the way most people think it will.