but now for some lighter news

People living under rocks may not have heard yet that California's Supreme Court ruled that everyone, regardless of gender or sex, should have the right to marry any other consenting adult. Same-sex marriages became legal as of 5:01 pm yesterday.

As a result, my loveliest and I have come out of the closet. Yep, we're married. We've been married for just over two years. Lauren tells the compleat story in her blog, so go read that. It's okay, I'll wait here...

Dum dee-dum, dumbledy dum... Hmm.

Hoo-hah shamma-shamma tiddle-ee-dah. Whum-pa pah-dee-oo-skiddly-doo-dat spah! Oobly-scoobly-oo-bap-sh-bim-

uh... Shit, I didn't expect you back so soon. It's so embarrassing getting caught in the middle of private scat singing.

I still have grave misgivings about the institution of marriage. I didn't think much about the discriminatory practice of legal marriage versus domestic partnership until about 7 or 8 years ago, when voters in California approved Prop 22, "The Defense of Marriage Act," which was a purely symbolic act defining marriage as between a man and a woman. No county in the state was permitting same-sex marriage, so the proposition didn't change anything. It just gave a bunch of assholes the opportunity to be assholes.

My long-term objections to marriage have been less related to justice. I have never wanted to be married, in part because of my iconoclastic allergy to social institutions generally, but in larger part because of what I regard as the baggage of tradition that comes along with it. Marriage is just too culturally heavy. When you are introduced as a husband, for instance, a whole string of additional characteristics, roles, attitudes, and ways of relating are presumptively attributed to you. Sure, some particular person, who knows us well, would know that we don't play our roles quite straight, but the cultural norm and the general expectation is that "married" fits both persons into neatly, unproblematically defined categorical boxes.

(As long as I'm confessing to being married, I might as well also confess that I generally take out the trash, pay the bills, file the taxes, and I'm the primary bread-winner. On the other hand, I'm also the primary bread-baker, as well as cook, kitchen cleaner, and vaccuumer.)

I resent being put in a box. (This is one of my most cat-like characteristics. If I want to be in the box, I'll go get in the box myself. I don't need the likes of you putting me in the damn box! Now gimme some damn catnip!)

Now that California isn't discriminating against people when it comes to marriage, there's less of a pressing reason to hide the fact that we are married, and moreover, there's an opportunity to make the point, again, that this discrimination is immoral. Plus, same-sex marriage isn't entirely safe yet. A group of maniacs is trying to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to ban same-sex marriage.