In that world,
you would not have been waiting
years to prove what you already know,
things true enough for yourself as it ever
needs to be, and of no concern to us;
nor would you be hauling your sacraments
up some courthouse steps for state approval,
nor suffer the unabated trance of Sisyphus
pushing against the endless rock of the law;
nor would a mountain of fear and superstition
bar the way to the simplest of human affairs;
your healthcare would not be a severed
appendage of belonging to someone else,
no bankruptcy would glare down
upon your sickbed, doubling your pain;
nor would you need travel distances to find
the found of 'Lost & Found'; it would always be
an unlocked door, open 24/7 in every state,
"this is what I am to you; this what you are to me,"
this is what we will remain,
whether said in a church or written down
on a napkin or whispered on a wind-swept hill,
no custom's man would stop you at the border
to say, "you can bring in 'this', this and this,
but your beloved must be left behind, by reason
of a line drawn on a map; they cannot stay."
No, in that world, no litmus test would stand,
nor any means for fifty other benefits denied;
we'd not abide the theft of love, nor hide
the act of caring for each other;
empathy would not be in such short supply,
and marriage? Why, nothing more than a reach
across the divide of separation, defended most
by that which puts an end to the pretend
of isolation from each other,
in that world.
"In Defense of Marriage" ©red slider, 2012. All rights reserved.
Permission is hereby granted for unrestricted, non-commercial distribution of "In Defense of Marriage"
when used for the purpose of defeating North Carolina's anti-gay 'Amendment One' or any other initiatives
that would promote or further the persecution and exclusion of persons by reason of sexual orientation from
the same rights and benefits provided any other person, married or single.
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