Marriage equality – What’s love got to do with it?
PRINT PAGE
Marriage equality – What’s love got to do with it?
Where is the Marriage Equality in this?
Recently at a wedding for two friends, I was listening to the celebrant declare the legal requirements for the ceremony and solemnise the marriage, and even though I have served at and witnessed hundreds of weddings in my years working in hospitality, I had never fully allowed myself to really feel the energetic discordance of this statement.
‘Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others’.
‘To the exclusion of all others’ reverberated within; it felt so totally alien to the inner feelings in my heart and incomprehensible as a law to be abided by all Australians.
Straight up I could feel that the paradigm of this law was cementing marriage in a way that actually incarcerates and limits the expression of love and its commitment between two, compartmentalising the act for the exclusivity of a man and a woman. This does not allow as love does, the truth that a commitment of love in a relationship is there for ALL equally. It was not my mind that told me this, but my body that registered the discomfort of a legacy that is not true, and not loving, because it is not equal.
As a woman who has committed to and loved and cherished my partner, a woman, for coming into 17 years now, our relationship has always only ever been about loving one another, expressing our love to each other and the greatest priority, which is to evolve the loving relationship constantly together to share with everyone else equally, as we are not in our own private Idaho loving each other without reference or connection to any other. This is one of the lessons that love brings to you when you open up to it, that it is not about exclusivity; you cannot love and hold onto a loving relationship without being inclusive and sharing the expression of that love that you have founded with those outside of you, otherwise your relationship and you become insular, stagnant, stuck and eventually superseded (this does not mean by being sexual with others outside of the relationship).
Marriage, a ritual that is revered, honoured and respected in all human communities, symbolises this union in a relationship because it witnesses two people in front of their most intimate relationships coming together and making the commitment to love one another, and this is expressed in the marriage vows.
Therefore, marriage in truth has a responsibility to be available to reflect the truth of this equality about love, inclusive to ALL equally.
As we all know within, there are no real limitations to loving in our relationships, and yet many of us carry the unseen scars of being harmed by our choices to reject the love that we are.
Love has no border controls: we have tried and failed spectacularly in this world to arrest and slander the unions of many potentially great and loving relationships, reducing them to being about sexuality, nationality, culture, religion – none of this has worked because it has all been based on false foundations of judgement, perception, fear, bias, ignorance, economics, status, power, territory and prejudice to name a few obvious and controlling blockages.
True love, and a purpose to love together in any relationship, transcends all of these barriers and always will.
Humanity deserves the highest truth to be reflected in relationships, and that is to live all together in a brotherhood that respects that all relationships can be founded on love and then built to evolve and constantly transform; marriage therefore in law must reflect this, and it is only a matter of time before this eventuates – we are just delaying and resisting this inevitability.
My partner and I belong to The Way of The Livingness, a religion that uniquely holds everyone equally in the truth of love – no discrimination, no exceptions. This religion celebrates a man and a woman together, and also equally that a man can love a man and express his vows to another man; a woman can love another woman and be blessed by the ceremony of marriage celebrated in and by the entire community.
One day in the correct time for us we will be married in the embrace of this religion and its congregation, which has always celebrated the truth of Marriage Equality. I know this day will be an experience of sharing love with everyone that is beyond what I can articulate in words – a celebration of true union and an honouring of the harmony that is possible in relationships, which is rare to experience on earth.
Filed under
Marriage, Acceptance, Gay, Relationships, Same sex relationships, Weddings
