This morning, I read this interview with Tom Ford, and I really liked some of the things he had to say; especially what he said about the gay marriage issue in this country. Tom Ford is my number one celebrity crush, so of course, any time I have a sliver of a good reason to do a post about him, I will. In fact, thinking about that, I don’t post about him nearly enough!
In the article, when he was asked if he would marry his partner of over 20 years, after being together for so long, Ford responded with:
Yes, when it becomes a federal law. Right now it doesn’t do any good in the states. A few weeks ago Richard had to go into the hospital for something, and I had to carry around all these legal documents saying I could make medical decisions for him. It was insane. The fact that we are not married in the federal sense means that if I were to die, he’d have to pay all these taxes on my estate and receive but a fraction of it and he’d have to alter his life —whereas if we were married, he wouldn’t have to face that burden. That’s disgusting. It’s wrong. But that said, I think I am in favor of terming what I’m talking about as a civil partnership. We all get so caught up with this word marriage. For me, the word marriage is something that a religion should decide. Just give me all the same rights. A civil partnership is what I’d like for everyone—heterosexual as well as homosexual. Call it what you like—it’s the rights that are important. Getting hung up with the semantics derails the cause we’re all fighting for.
It really resonated with me, because that is exactly the way that people should view it. If the word marriage makes it such a sticky and religious issue, take “marriage” out of it. Give us the rights, you can keep the religious mumbo jumbo; we don’t want that part of it anyway. Additionally, the government shouldn’t back religious practices anyway, so if this will get us equal rights, I am all for it.
I for one, am sick and tired of someone holding up a book and determining what rights I get to have because of what that book may or may not have told them to believe as the truth; the same book that also told them to love thy neighbor, and not pass judgment. Wrapping civil rights up in religious institutions is not only wrong, it is unconstitutional. When will our government take a stand, and stand up for us?
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