I have never been married, but my "straight privilege" deemed by law would have allowed me to make multiple Mr. Wrong marriage choices, right after each other. (Fortunately, I never listened to my mother, who wanted me to marry someone, anyone, just so I could say I had been married. Good grief.)
Meanwhile, until a few years ago, my childhood friend Carolyn was not allowed to marry Beth, the love of her life, because they are of the same gender. And it wasn't that long ago that LGBT people were arrested for exercising their sexual preference. So today's Supreme Court decision bringing marriage equality to all 50 states is really something to celebrate.
I am not going to claim I fully understand what Carolyn or any of my other gay or lesbian friends have gone through in life. Because I can't.
I do know what it is like to be a straight woman who has a lot of interests more associated with men, like following sports and music and history and politics and trivia, and how some people have thought my interests were weird (I did an eighth-grade music class report on the Ramones and everybody laughed at me!) and unfeminine (if I had a dollar for every guy who condescended to me about my interest in sports, only for me to prove him wrong, I would be pretty wealthy now!)
But because I am only attracted to men, I still had the freedom to love whom I loved without society deeming me a sinner or bad person or throwing me in jail or the psych ward. Or having to lie to my family and friends about my feelings.
So I am happy that my gay and lesbian friends can now marry whomever they love, no matter what state they are in. But I must warn them of one thing: that means that they may have nagging mothers telling them to get married, too, even when they haven't found the right person yet!
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