In the first announcement of a gay marriage, we learn all there is to know
This is fascinating. And very telling.
John O'Connor and Mark Jones are getting hitched and the Times of London carries word of it in the paper's forthcoming marriages section:
A period of engagement is announced between Mr John Christopher O’Connor and Dr Mark Bryan Jones, both of Islington, London. Following the enactment of the Civil Partnership legislation expected later this year, the couple will announce the time and location of both the civil union and subsequent church blessing ceremonies to interested parties.
Although the announcement itself is history-making -- never before in the paper's 220 years has it published notice of an upcoming same-sex partnership -- it's the other elements of the story I found both fascinating and informative.
Dr. Jones and Mr. O'Connor met on the Internet and carried on a five-month online courtship before finally meeting in person in 2002. But at the time they met, Dr. Jones was engaged to a woman -- a fact that had itself been announced in the Times. In other words, while Dr. Jones was engaged to a woman he was also engaged in a manhunt. This should have set off an alarm for Mr. O'Connor, who is evidently unaware of the truism that what people do with you, they'll do to you.
But it gets better:
"It [the Civil Partnership Act] means emotional stability and the same rights as a married couple," said Dr Jones. "It also might show other people how seriously committed we are to each other."
The Act -- which is nothing more than the codification of a legislator's musings -- means emotional stability for your relationship? Emotional stability?! Uh, no dear; it most assuredly does not. The law might affirm a relationship characterized by emotional stability, but it cannot provide it. And as for showing people how seriously committed these two are to one another, this speaks volumes:
Mr O'Connor and Dr Jones are also drawing up a "pre-nuptial" agreement over Dr Jones’s earnings before they met.
In other words, even before they're hitched, they're already opening an escape hatch and making sure it's big enough for their money to follow them through it. Ain't that sweet?
In this, the first announcement of its kind, we see in the appalling details a microcosm of what marriage has become and why same-sex marriage is now conceivable, not only in Europe but here too. After all, these men are only mimicking the behavior they've observed in others. (You can imagine, yes, an identical announcement from a heterosexual couple?)
Whatever it was or meant in the days of yore, marriage is no longer a sturdy foundation for the raising of children; or a way to protect women from isolation and poverty after they've spent their youth as mothers; or an institution that provides structure and stability to our communities. Today it's just a benefit-laden mechanism for joining together two adults who say to one another: "I'll love you until I don't." As evidenced by this first announcement of a forthcoming gay union, rooted as it is in betrayal and foreshadowing an exit strategy, the contemporary understanding of marriage does not require sobriety or a view to depth or durability.
As the Rev. Donald Sensing wrote: " ... gay marriage, if it ever comes about (and it will) will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it."