Morning Commute Cam: It’s Time

Of course, I had noting to do with the production of this video. It is an add that’s running in Australia. No matter where you stand you the issue, you have to admit the video is well done.

I have spent most of my adult life accepting the fact that I will never be able to marry the person I love. I have submitted myself completely to the idea that marriage equality will not happen in my lifetime. That makes society a powerful, inevitable  force, me a wimp, or both. When I think about marriage equality, I feel submissive, defeated, and hopeless. Those aren’t feelings I enjoy having, so I have taught myself to ignore the issue altogether. Again, social norms are powerful and inevitable.

But then I watch this video and something stirs deep within me. I start to ask myself, “Why not?” I start to get angry. I  begin to look again at the right and the wrong of it. I have experienced every scene in that video with my life partner except we haven’t yet been on a cruise. Why can’t we have what the rest of the world has?

I just this moment received an invitation to a wedding. How ironic is that? Sure. I’ll buy you a present and attend your wedding. But let me ask you this: when you sent the invitation, did you even think about how I’m excluded from what you’re doing, and what that might mean to me? Should you have thought about it?

If I had the time, meaning, if I were retired, I would show up at my Middle-Tennessee County Court Clerk and ask, “Can I get married?” When he said, “No,” I’d leave without  a word only to return the following day, and the next, and the next, until the law either changed, or I died.

I wonder if I could change my work hours to do it? Would you go with me a couple of times?

It’s time.