August wedding ...notes

I don't know if I want to get married or not.

Not that I specifically have a mate-candidate in particular right now.

But for some weird reason, instead of fixing the economy, jobs, etc., same-sex marriage is being pushed as a HUGE, important, we-must-decide-this-this-year thing. For EVERYWHERE in the United States. And therefore, of course, many states are going against it and the country is dividing (further).

Why now? Anybody got an answer for that one? Is it that it's a keep-the-incumbent-president year?

After-Edit, 9/9/12: Okay, I've built a theory.

After years of slow thought and movement, it sounds

like it simply snowballed this year. Or maybe it was last year

and I haven't been paying attention. The year before?

If I was to get married to a woman, she would probably take the lead on planning the entire thing. Well, I mean, don't women usually, with weddings? Unless she was a modern woman or a hipster and made us split up the tasks.

If I'm to marry a man, I'd really try to keep it simple. (And, of course, try to split up the tasks.)

When I was a kid, in one of the Archie Comics Digests I often got when going to the supermarket with my mother, was a story where Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper compared their dream weddings. Veronica's, of course, would be huge and lavish and expensive, with a vast guest list, a wedding cake with huge tiers and fountains, a big church and reception hall, and a gorgeous designer wedding dress. Betty's was naturally the other extreme: the ceremony itself would be either on the beach or in a meadow, surrounded by close family and friends, a potluck picnic dinner to follow, and the wedding dress would be what we'd call today "vintage," possibly her grandmother's.

And, of course, both girls were planning to marry Archie.

Besides going for the boy next door with red hair, I'd pick Betty's wedding if pressed. Do we all need to be completely dressed up? Write our own vows? No. The fact that we're all here in this together says enough about how we love each other. Do we have to have a huge guest list? Can't we just do an announcement? Here it is, we're getting hitched, change your address books, no need to send us a gift, the end.

Oh, and the gifts. No. Please. By the time we'll have been close enough to each other to join in matrimony for -- um, well, I should HOPE -- the rest of our lives, we will likely have everything a couple needs.

Wanna buy us a house? I didn't think so.

I'm probably going to lobby for: "Thank you, but no gifts. If you wish, please feel free to make a contribution in our name to --" …a marriage equality fund? a gay youth group? You get the idea. I'm sure we'll pick one by that point.

Now, to pick the husband…