When I got married I took VOWS. I promised that for better or worse, rich or poor, sick or healthy, I would commit to a lifetime of love, support, nurturing and unconditional acceptance of my partner. I took those vows and promised in front of God and Family and Friends that I would take the “sacrament” of marriage to the end of time with a conscious understanding of all that this entailed.
The first year of marriage was the most difficult. It was a year of learning one another and the idiosyncracies that made us unique and individuals and a unit at the same time. It was about pets, kids, and household expectations. It was about finances and in-laws and out-laws and holidays. It was about schedules, friends and how the new “We” functioned as an “Us” and all that this entailed while we struggled to hold on to our ideals and identities and it was not a picnic. It was also about paying off what was a relatively inexpensive wedding .
I get emails and messages nearly every day from people on the topic of Same Sex Unions. I am bombarded with opinion about what is socially and morally acceptable. I am astounded by the characteristics of morality in the sacrament of marriage and how this, in our modern world is manipulated to suit our needs and immediate gratification of the moment, and how so many can denounce the equality or preservation of matrimony in the eyes of God, Universe or Man for that matter, when the fundamental LAWS and VOWS of marriage are so easily dismissed and cast off like bad rubbish in hetero sexual marriages.
I know a woman who married 4 or 5 times. She had a different theme for each event and each time promised to “love until death do us part”. The number of times is questionable, considering in some states cohabitating is viewed as common law and she has this to her credit as well. She has turned out husbands and weddings like some people turn out laundry, and yet judges the “morality of same sex unions as prescribed by God in the bible”. She addresses the dress she wore at her last wedding, her mothers, cathedral train and all, as a “sacred” dress. By the 5th wedding, from my perspective, its not sacred at all, its a pile of fabric. The result of the relationship with this woman, based on her new Christian Morality for the moment, is the total demise of the relationship, as her morality bleeds into the psyche and emotional well being of my child, and frankly speaking, I am not inclined to engage in sanctimonious epitaph’s from someone who has blatently discredited the sacrament of marriage for her own agenda. She is like so many of our generation, and although sad, it is true that the perspective of the human relationship, any relationship, is one of disposal.
Moving forward to Kim Kardashian’s latest tabloid headline, a marriage that lasted 72 days. Cited as “irreconcilable differences”, the blushing new bride, after spending an exhorbidant amount of money on the nuptials, has declared the marriage over before getting started. Honestly? And the issue with our morality today is???? Was it that he had the audacity to tell her that her moment of fame would wane when children and school became part of the reality of their lives? Was it perhaps that her inability to compromise on dogs and living conditions super-ceded the promise she made “better or worse” before God and Community?
An icon for many young women today, and adored by the LGBTQ communities by and large, Kim has just devalued the heterosexual concept of MARRIAGE in less than 6 weeks, and the world punishes those seeking the right to marry for couples of the same sex who wait years for the legal issues to roll their way?? Commitment is the Gay Couple from San Francsico who LIVE a life in Marriage without the document and didn’t split because the dog barked too loud, or the partner made an honest observation. 
How is it that society can condemn those who ARE committed at all costs unconditionally as immoral, but sensationalize the reality star of the moment, who incidentally is recognized for her BODY IMAGE, for filing for divorce 72 days after promising to be COMMITTED?
Commitment: Allegiance, Fidelity, Attachment, Devotion, Acceptance, Faithful, Constancy,Loyalty
This “fine example of society” (I use this term loosely) in fact is a role model to many young women, and the message sent is ‘if it doesn’t work, don’t fix it, throw it away.”
People are not disposable. Relationships take work. They take fortitude and strength and endurance. They take perserverance and above all, unconditional love. That means, when it gets hard, you love more than when it was easy, because that is when the relationship is in its greatest need. You don’t dispose of it because you can’t COMMIT to making it work.
Who are “they” to judge the union of two people, Gay, Lesbian, Transexual or Queer, when “they” have no credibility upon which to draw?
Today divorce is as easy as tossing out the trash. All it takes is money. So, not only did the Kardashian’s spend unconscienable amounts of money on a lavish 6 hour event in an economy where everyone with a Master’s Degree is standing on line for a Holiday Part time job at Walmart, but 72 days later she threw him out like trash and considered the money spent, as disposable as well? And we wonder what is wrong with our society today and the morality of our country?
Its in our acceptance and tolerance of substandard morals that only apply if aligned with our personal agenda’s for the purpose of our immediate gratification, the rest of the world be damned to our perspective of what is right and what is wrong.
If a same sex couple can sustain love and commitment for YEARS with or without the paper, I say the morality there, and the character nurtured within that relationship far exceeds the morality of the reality star or those who think marriage is a day to play dress up and have a party.
I love my husband at all costs. I commit to him, no matter what until the day I die. I fight for the value and quality of life I embarked on when I made that promise, and I work at it every single day of my life. It is without a doubt the hardest job I have ever held and the one of which I am most proud. It doesn’t come with a salary. It doesn’t come with perfect fantasies and fairy tales. It comes with every single obstacle life can dream up and throw at us. We have had abundance and we have had absolutely nothing. One thing remains, we have had each other. Imperfect. Flawed. Human. Real. All of which translates to love. We work to live by example so that our children, one straight and one gay, recognizes that the tenements of marriage are not disposable, are not irreconcilable and that everything in life is in full cycle. And if you love unconditionally ANYTHING is possible, including a life long commitment and rapture.
