“brides”
Along with many other couples, my girlfriend and I will be marrying at the end of June. We’ve been entrenched in the whirlwind of wedding planning. We’re looking at bridal magazines I thought I’d never read, making a registry, buying rings, etc. It’s been an exciting journey and poignant because we finally have the legal right to enter into this world of wedding planning madness.
Like many of California’s newest unions, our marriage will be viewed with mixed feelings. While we are used to and expect the religious right and conservatives to have a particular point of view about our pending nuptials, our wedding planning has revealed surprising, subtle discrimination from people who would consider themselves open-minded and supportive of gay marriage.
Let me just first say, I cringe at the term “gay marriage.” I will be happy when our marriage doesn’t need a qualifier. I may seem like an ingrate. With this civil right still so freshly available to us and the risk that it could be revoked in November, I should just be happy we can even get married. But my heart can’t help but sink a little bit when we encounter these subtle ways that people see ours marriage as different. For example, while corresponding with someone about wedding plans, the person wrote that they were so happy and excited for the “brides” to be. It was the quotation marks on brides that got us. They told us that deep down we were thought of as playing the role of brides rather than actually being brides.
And our officiant (former officiant now) was so thrilled at the thought of performing her first gay marriage. Although we described the elegant, rather traditional affair that we are planning, she thought that maybe we should make it a themed wedding or have wacky decorations because she thought we could “get as weird as you want” since she didn’t consider it a traditional wedding.
What’s interesting is I’ve felt insidious discrimination before for a different reason. Growing up as a child of mixed race I noticed the small ways race became a factor for people when they interacted with me. And this was from people who would never be considered racist. From an early age I got the feeling that I was accepted, but accepted despite being different. When I moved to Europe at age 23 it was the most liberating experience I’ve every had. There, I was just American. When my European friends lamented my food or clothing choices and admonished me by saying “you are so American”, I beamed with pride. Finally I was just American, not a slightly different American.
My dream is that one day in my own country, my girlfriend and I will just be a married couple. Not a “married” couple.