💒 Marriage Equality Completely Destroyed Society - Just Like They Warned! 💒

QUEER WORD
MARRIAGE EQUALITY

What it means:

Marriage equality refers to the legal recognition of marriage for couples regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Or, in other words, it means queer people can marry just like straight people - and enjoy all the benefits of marriage, like overly-judgmental in-laws, joint custody of their vintage Pokemon cards, and hour-long arguments over whose turn it is to take out the rubbish.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Marriage equality means I finally get to experience the time-honoured tradition of passive-aggressively loading the dishwasher 'the right way' after my husband does it wrong.

The slippery, slippery slope of marriage equality

Remember when opponents of marriage equality warned us about all the knock-on effects it would unleash? The slippery, slippery slope they said we’d be on? How society would simply collapse in on itself?

Well, now that marriage equality has become commonplace in many countries I thought it would be fun to revisit some of the more absurd predictions we were bombarded with, and see whether any of them have actually come true. 

Claim 1: People will start to marry inanimate objects

Reacting negatively to the US Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, Congressman Steve King (Republican, Iowa) mused that the decision now meant that people could marry inanimate objects, opining that now ‘you can marry my lawnmower’.

Did this claim come true: No. Though my favourite part of this whole story is that straight ally Pat Rynard actually called the Congressman on his bullshit and took a lawnmower to the Polk County Recorder’s office in order to ask for a marriage licence. HIs request was, of course, denied.

Claim 2: Marriage equality will lead to 900,000 abortions

The US-based ‘100 Scholars of Marriage’ took the well-trodden-but-still-totally-nonsensical argument that if queer people start to get married, suddenly heterosexual people will stop wanting to. Leaping from this bizarre sentiment to the unrelated fact that the abortion rate is higher among unmarried women, the ‘scholars’ asserted that ‘under reasonable assumptions,’ if marriage equality came into effect there would be ‘nearly 900,000 more children aborted’ in the next 30 years.

Did this claim come true: I mean, it’s only been ten years in the US, not the 30 that the authors predicted it would take, but I’d hazard a guess and say absolutely not.

Claim 3: Marriage equality will (most certainly) lead to bestiality

Representative Louie Gohmert (Republican, Texas), argued that there would be no ‘clear place to draw a line’ if marriage equality was enacted. He went on to argue:

Did this claim come true: Believe it or not, no. There are no people currently protesting for the right to marry their Alsatian.

Claim 4: Children will be encouraged to ‘try’ homosexuality

Michele Bachmann, former US Representative (2004) made all sorts of claims, including:

Did this claim come true: Well, I hope that more kids now learn that queerness is normal and natural, so in a way it’s come true. But, no, I don’t think that kids are now being encouraged to try homosexuality against their will.

Claim 5: Marriage equality will lead to more death

It's a bit difficult to follow the logic on this one, so bear with me.

The think tank Mike Huckabee Policy Solutions — which says it is ‘neither authorised, funded, directed nor controlled by Gov. Huckabee,’ but simply exists to advocate his views — protested the US Supreme Court ruling by stating:

Their starting argument was that ‘individuals who engage in homosexuality’ die younger. Building on this, they perused newspapers for ‘homosexual obituaries’ to measure whether being partnered at the time of death had any impact on the age a person died. Since they got inconclusive results, they of course concluded that marriage won't make gay people live longer.

Did this claim come true: It’s hard to know exactly what their argument was, but I’m going to say…. no?

Claim 6: The world will end, basically

Televangelist Reverend Pat Robertson took it up a notch or two by claiming divine wrath would befall the world. After marriage equality became law, Robertson lamented:

 Did this claim come true: No, but you’d likely have a hard time convincing Robertson of this. He has a history of blaming natural disasters (and even terrorist attacks) on the advancement of queer rights, so he no doubt thinks the state of the world is not a result of climate disaster or late capitalism, but, you know, two men holding hands.

So… what actually did happen?

The world didn’t implode. Society didn’t crumble. No one seriously tried to seduce their lawnmower (at least, I don’t think so).

But you know what did happen?

A whole lot of queer people got to marry someone they love. They got to stand up in front of their friends, their families, and say: ‘I choose you.’

And, regardless of how you might personally feel about marriage (that it’s a heteronormative construct built to uphold property rights and patriarchal power), that’s still something worth celebrating.

But let’s not get complacent. At a time when our rights are consistently under attack (since 2022 there have been a staggering 1,903 bills introduced in the US to limit the rights of LGBTQIA+ citizens) the right to marry is not a given, but something we have to fight tooth and nail to hold on to.

(And sincere apologies to anyone reading this who genuinely fancies their lawnmower - this wasn't meant to be lawnmower-phobic.)