Marriage in Massachusetts

Posted by: Dan Savage
Topic:  Marriage

Marriage is the topic of the week, and I've found it hard to avoid the topic of same-sex marriage--seeing as I'm gay and all, and legally prevented from marrying. But I promise to stop going on and on about same-sex marriage--after today. It's a promise I'll be able to keep, with any luck, once we shift the discussion to other subjects.

It was three years ago yesterday that same-sex couples in Massachusetts began to legally marry. Here's a terrific NPR piece about how marriage rights are transforming gay life in that state. As same-sex marriage advocates predicted, the right to marry is having a huge impact on how gays and lesbians see themselves and conduct their privates lives. Same-sex marriage rights have also had, contrary to predictions made by same-sex marriage opponents, no impact whatsoever on opposite-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts, incidentally, still has the lowest divorce rates in the country. The state with the second lowest divorce rate? Connecticut, which makes civil unions available to same-sex couples. And the part of the country with the highest divorce rates? The Bible Belt, where same-sex marriage and civil unions are very much unavailable. And in Massachusetts--where people have gotten a chance to see same-sex marriage up close--opposition to same-sex marriage is fading.

So happy anniversary to all the same-sex couples in Massachusetts that married three years ago--many after decades together--and props to the heterosexuals of Massachusetts for recognizing that full equality for gays and lesbians takes nothing away from straight people.