NEWS: US Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide.
So be it! Come to think of it, nonetheless: Is this a truly welcome news to the LGBT population in general as it must most certainly be to the human rights advocates per se who have long fought for its institution? Put more clearly, would most, if not all, American LGBT partners now already living together informally, or yet wanting to live together as husband and wife, now suddenly eagerly rush to their respective cities’ officiating authorities and get their marriage legally sealed and solemnized? I don’t think so, from the standpoint of plain common sense!
As things used to be, homosexuals in the United States as well as everywhere else in the world have been as free as the birds up in the air. One could seek any partner or at times even as many partners simultaneously as his or her libido desires; live and cohabit with another separately or together under one roof; and/or abandon or replace a live-in partner anytime it pleased them, with solely their conscience to answer to.
The same-sex marriage law has entirely obliterated these freedoms! That is because marriage is a legal contract between two parties and it carries with it several obligations which each party must fulfill to the other, in particular, or to society, in general; otherwise he or she becomes answerable before the law. For one thing, married homosexuals must subscribe to the same existing laws on support—taxation, property rights, ownership and succession, among other obligations—that govern their heterosexual counterparts. For another—as a matter of fact, more importantly—they cannot remarry, for example, unless previously divorced. Of course, divorce is so far the easiest thing to get in the United States. Even so, why must one go into its rigors, no matter how insignificant, when once upon a time homosexuals could go as polygamous, so to speak, as they wanted to without much ado or having to be haled to court?
And so, at this juncture, I dare ask: Indeed, why should many homosexuals in general wish to avail themselves of same-sex marriage? To enjoy the so-called “human right” (kuno) to be at par with heterosexuals before the law? Alas and alack, given the freedom they would surrender in return, methinks the exchange is rather idealistic than practical!
—RUDY L. CORONEL, rudycoronel 2004@gmail.com