How we’re handling the marriage equality issue

We’ve considered a lot of ideas for how we want to represent our support of marriage equality at our wedding. As you may recall, when we tackled this issue before (a few times), we were throwing around a bunch of possible ideas. From ribbons to favor tags, from donations to speeches.

We were leaning toward making a donation to an organization that supports marriage equality, then putting some sort of information about that organization out at our wedding. Maybe on the favor tags? That was until Rebecca (who didn’t give me anything to link to) gave us an idea we loved in her comment on this post.

She told us about WhiteKnot.org which proclaims that “Everyone should have the right to tie the knot.” The idea is that you wear a white “knot” or ribbon from them to show your support of marriage equality. It’s such a simple thing, a small statement, but if people ask us about our white knots, it gives us a great platform for explaining our position.

There are a couple ways to get knots. You can donate $25 and receive a kit to make about 50 knots on your own (great for groups); you can send a self-addressed stamped envelope and they’ll send back a knot; or make a donation of $5 or more and you’ll receive one knot. We made two donations and will presumably receive two knots in the mail soon.

We only ordered knots for the two of, which we’ll wear on our wedding day, but Mike had the idea to maybe wear them at the FMGSS as well. That way if anyone asks and is interested, they could get their own knot and maybe even wear it to the wedding.

I think this was the perfect solution for us to our quandry about how to represent our beliefs without causing a big to do.

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Updates From the Silent Partner

So i realized the other day that Shannon is posting at a rate of 7 posts to each one that I post. Blogs are a lot of work, and she makes it look so easy. I’m definitely not a daily post kind of guy, but I’m going to try to catch up a little bit. I don’t want to disappoint Shannon. So, here goes.

First of all, we sat down and reviewed our wedding planning itinerary the other night. We’re ahead of schedule, and that seems amazing. It doesn’t feel like we’ve done much of anything, but we’re coming along. Our reception menu is almost completely planned in regards to what we’re eating, who’s making it, and who’s paying for it. We started talking about gift registration, wedding shower plans, and decided on music. We placed due dates on all our tasks, and right now we’re up to the first of the year. So, go us.

Another thought on marriage equality. I’m taking a business law class right now, and last week we talked about employee rights. The Civil Rights Act set up a lot of equality legislation. It protects people against discrimination in employment based on race, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, and a bunch of other categories I’m not able to think of on the spot. But it doesn’t protect against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. I realize that this legislation was passed in the late 60’s, but we’ve had lots of legislative updates since then. But not to protect LGBT individuals. What’s taking so long US government?

More specifically dealing with marriage equality, recently a study was completed to determine the economic effects of not being able to marry. I read in Rolling Stone that not being allowed to marry costs a gay couple almost half a million dollars over the course of their lives. Talk about abridging the right of citizens to the pursuit of happiness. The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law also recently did a study on the financial effects of gay marriage legislation. According to this study of Maine’s recent legislation, if gays were allowed to marry without restriction, Maine would see $3.6 Million over 3 years in tax revenues from food, lodging, marriage licenses, and other wedding-related activities. Not to mention the economic impact of weddings. People spend a lot of money on weddings, gay or straight. Come on government.

Now, I realize that economics shouldn’t be the reason for legislative changes to guarantee marriage rights, but it shouldn’t be ignored. Especially the consideration that not being married costs money. Half a million dollars is a lot of money over the course of your life. That’s like buying a really nice house. Or a pretty good house and being able to take a vacation every couple years. So, really, get with it government.

Next up for us, Thanksgiving with Shannon’s Grandparents. Her Grandmother is the queen of Thanksgiving in her family, so she’s doing most of her recipes. I’m making rolls though. It’ll be my first foray into baking for other people, but I’m excited about it. It’s making me feel like part of the family, and that’s a pretty good feeling (I know…aww).

Speaking of Thanksgiving, this will be our first major holiday together, and it’s got me thinking about family traditions. What are some of your favorites?

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Supporting marriage equality: ideas

After thinking, talking and considering suggestions, we have two ideas for how to recognize our support of marriage equality at our wedding. See the background story here.

1. Instead of tags with our names or initials or dates or thank yous, much like the very nice ones my friend Robin made for her favors…

…we would use tags that had some sort of message about this issue. We thought maybe the Human Rights Campaign logo and website since that’s an organization we both support. And one that is even broader than just marriage equality. That way people will maybe be curious about the tags and ask questions or visit the website. I think this is a nice subtle way to share our beliefs without hitting people over the head.

2. CaliSlim suggested that we wear ribbons modeled after the breast cancer awareness ribbons.

(Except not pink)

We could wear them for the ceremony and reception, and ask any guests we know that are also supportive to wear them too. The idea is that people will see the ribbons, and it will give us a platform to share the meaning.

We also considered a way of combining these two ideas:

3. We could simply do both. Tags and ribbons. Or we could wear the ribbons ourselves, then also tie ribbons on each of the favors (instead of tags) so others could wear them too if they felt compelled.

What do you guys think? Do you like these ideas? What do you think we should do?

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Supporting marriage equality

The recent vote in Maine reminds me how far we have to go in marriage equality. I don’t get it, I really don’t. I don’t think a gay marriage would cheapen my own marriage in any way, and I think that justification is malarkey, quite frankly. It doesn’t compute, it’s not logical, and it’s downright mean.

Mike and I want to do something to show our support of marriage equality in our own wedding somehow. But how? We thought about making donations to an appropriate organization in our guests’ names as favors, but with the very tiny portion of our budget dedicated to favors, this is impossible.

We considered putting a note in our programs, but we’re not having programs, so that doesn’t work. We talked about working it into the ceremony, maybe having our officiant mention it somehow, but we don’t know how to do this unawkwardly (why is that not a word?). Also, we don’t want to be preachy. I hate when weddings conducted by religious officials (which ours will not be) turn into preachy sermons.

All of our wedding guests are pretty decided in regards to their beliefs on gay marriage, so I’m not trying to use our wedding as a platform for conversion. Rather, I just want to acknowledge our support of marriage equality and somehow demonstrate that we know how fortunate we are to have been born with sexual preferences that allow us this right that is denied so many others. In our personal lives we will continue to support the fight, but we know nobody’s going to change their mind at our wedding, so that’s not the goal.

Do you have any suggestions? I’ve been searching for good ideas and nothing seems quite right. Did you do something like this at your wedding? Would you?

Give us your ideas. Please!

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