As of 5pm today it became legal for county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. One of the first couples to be married in San Francisco have been together for the last fifty years.
I think this fact is worth mentioning because of some of the objections that people have made over the concept of same sex weddings. They talk about the lack of commitment, promiscuity, etc.
Here we have a couple that has been dedicated to each other for five decades without being able to legally join in matrimony. Given that the current divorce rate is somewhere in the range of 50% I think it’s pretty impressive this couple has been together for 50 yrs.
Indeed, when I hear discussions of couples married for 30 or 40 years the normal reaction of the group is to be impressed they have made it that long. I am still, by most standards, a young pup and yet I still know many people my age who have been married and divorced, sometimes more than once.
In fact one could argue that many same sex couples have been more dedicated to each other for years without any legal requirement they do so. By contrast I know of many opposite sex couples who have stayed together for years despite being in sad sometimes abusive relationships.
This is not to say of course that there are not straight couples that have been together forever or that there are not gay couples that have been through dozens of different relationships. That is unfortunately part of society today (and indeed has probably been part of society for centuries).
But the idea that same sex couples cannot be committed to themselves is one of the worst stereotypes out there and one that needs to be stamped out.