RE: Titles and Labels

Hey there people.

This morning I received an email about my previous post. I appreciate the gesture of sending this private message, but it brings up a topic that I'd like to address publicly:


Hey there Sydney! It’s been a while right?! Anywhoo, I just have a quick question that I wanted to ask you that I didn’t want to ask in your comment section because I felt it was better suited as an email.

Okay, so in your post you said:

A piece of paper saying that two people are united in holy matrimony doesn't mean a thing.

Do you mind if I ask how do you feel about gay marriage rights? Because there are sooooooo many people who are trying to prove the exact opposite of what you are saying . I used to be like: It’s just a piece of paper and as long as Gays & Lesbians are afforded the same rights (through things like civil unions guarantying benefit,tax breaks etc) as hetero folks who cares? It wasn’t until I started law school and kind of started paying attention that I realized that it goes beyond that. And, all things being equal, a piece of paper saying that two people are united in holy matrimony means everything.

I just want to be clear on something. It wasn't my intention to offend any of my readers who are a) very happily married or b) a member of the LGBT community. Please understand that my comments were not intended to belittle the sanctity of marriage as an institution. I know that there is SO much more to marriage than fidelity and, as I said in my post, there's no way I could possibly address every combination of a relationship. My focus was only on the issue of honor within a marriage, or relationship for that matter. Everything outside of that, I won't attempt to speak on because I couldn't do the issue justic. That said, I'd like to reiterate something I probably didn't make entirely clear in my post. I was in no way suggesting that marriage itself is meaningless (I can understand how my statement about "a piece of paper saying two people are united in holy matrimony not meaning a thing" could be misconstrued as such). Though I have never bared witness to a successful, honest marriage, I do believe that when two people are fully commited to each other, it can be a beautiful thing. I was speaking ONLY in regards to fidelity. In this context, certainly the marriage title doesn't stop a person from being unfaithful. I think we can all agree on that. That was my only argument.

What I want you guys to realize is that I'm writing from my personal experiences and perspective. I come from single parent home; my parents divorced because of my father's infidelity (he cheated on my mother with six different women; the result was six half-siblings). What my father did to my mother is the epitome of everything I fear. They were, to her knowledge, happily married for 10 years. But then she found out that he was cheating on her the entire time. So you see, based on my own personal experiences with relationships (having been cheated on and cheated with) and the example of my parents', I am just a smidge disenchanted with marriage at this point in my life.