Small Debate On Gay Mariage

5 Pages 1221 Words

What the heck is “marriage” anyway? Finding a definitive answer on dictionary.com was extremely difficult. In a very circular and redundant motion, each definition pointed back at it’s previous. Marriage is defined as “the state of being married; wedlock”. Wedlock is defined as “the state of being married; matrimony.” Matrimony is defined as “the act or state of being married; marriage.” Married is defined as “having a spouse”. And, finally, spouse is defined as “a marriage partner”. So if I had no predefined concept of what it means to be married and I relied solely on the dictionary definition, I would be thoroughly confused.
Another interesting interpretation of marriage was “a wedding”. I, myself, was married in the eyes of Michael Bloomberg and the State of New York long before I had an actual wedding. Why would I need that piece of paper anyway? Isn’t my bond to my intended betrothed proof enough of our love? Although it may be sufficient proof of my love, my love is not sufficient as payment for a doctor’s visit. So there we were in July 2002 in the midst of planning our wedding (for February 2003) when he started to feel not-so-good. After exhausting free professional medical services from family and close friends we realized that this was serious. He needed TESTING. Because he had started his job just a month prior and his insurance wouldn’t have kicked in until the end of September we did something that, inevitably, we were going to do anyway… we got married. Decided to do it on Wednesday night, Thursday morning got the application for a license and 23.5 hours later were back on Friday morning to get in line to see the Justice of the Peace. Exactly 24 hours and 3 minutes after our application time we were married. By Friday afternoon he was being C.A.T. scanned, MRI’ed and poked and prodded in places that he doesn’t talk about at parties. So without the ‘event’...