Was not expecting to be so moved by New York state's passage of the law enabling gays to do something that I have never had much compulsion to do myself. But I am truly pleased and proud that all of my gay friends and all my gay strangers now share the right to dismiss an outmoded institution that continues to legitimize the more tawdry aspects of how men and women relate to each other. Maybe the gays can even fix it! – make it something worthy of this supposedly progressive place and time we live in.
Incidentally, I went to a (straight) engagement party last night where people talked a lot about marriage and kids and all of those things I can't ever manage to want to grow into. The conversation turned to last names. The married women had mostly kept theirs. But then how did they or will they provide their children with a last name? Everyone was stumped, unable to produce an option devoid of serious drawbacks.
“Hyphenation only works for one generation.”
“The mother's last name as middle name is still acknowledging a hierarchy.”
“Maybe the gays will come up with something now,” I said. And I continue to think today that this might be our next best hope of creating a post-patriarchal system for coupledom and family.
It's all on you now, homos!
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