STRAIGHT COUPLES WHO REFUSE TO MARRY BECAUSE GAY COUPLES CAN'T: From the Village Voice

...Reverend Andrea Ayvazian, dean of religious life at Mount Holyoke College, chose her side of that war back in 1985, when she began her relationship with her partner, Michael Klare, a professor and a writer for The Nation. "It's important to step up. We don't want to be part of an institution that's actively discriminatory," says the United Church of Christ minister, who's also a folksinger. "It's like the days before the Civil Rights movement. If you got on the bus, there were white people in the front and black people in the back. This is just as clear--heterosexuals get married and gays and lesbians don't." ...

Ayvazian, who has a 15-year-old son with Klare, says, "I want to have a real wedding, even if we're 80. I'm holding out for that." ...

But another race parallel undermines the choice to refrain from marriage: Much like the white-skin privilege, the heterosexual-marriage privilege is extended even to those who object to it. Cohabiting straight couples are automatically recognized as married by "common law" in several states without signing a single dotted line, notes J. Smith, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.

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posted by Eve at 10:48 AM | link

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