zoekrupka.com

This Valentine’s Day, Magda Szubanski came outas a lesbian in support of gay marriage on national television. Social media went mad. We’re still talking about it a week later. Why do we care so much about coming out when the most common media catchphrase following her disclosure was that sexual orientation doesn’t matter? With a banquet of examples of discrimination to choose from, why does gay marriage grab so much of our attention?

There are such terribly tiny spaces carved out for the social expression of love. We have marriage, Valentine’s Day and love song dedications. Even if we think we’re too cool, our love too special, better, chiller, more real or less corny than everyone else’s, we’re pretty much at a loss as to how to express it publicly if we dodge these rituals.

What Magda Szubanski did last week, among other things, was to express her love for women and her desire for gay people to participate in one of the few rituals of love still available. And she chose Valentine’s Day to do it.

Marriage, not unlike Valentine’s Day, is a sore spot for many people. It’s a celebration that separates the partnered from the single, the cherished from the rejected. In most parts of the world it separates gay from straight. It doesn’t really matter that we may see both marriage and Valentine’s Day as a sham or as commercial pap, or as patriarchal capitalism at its worst. Both marriage and Valentine’s Day can still have the power to induce pain and shame in those of us feeling alone and excluded.

It’s only easy to be indifferent to cultural ceremonies of love when you feel loved and included. It’s not just about whether you want to go — but whether you’ve been invited. The privileges of these rituals are many, the legal and economic perhaps most obvious. But the welcoming of public displays of love is hugely important to our wellbeing and to the healthiness of our partnerships.