And the Winner Is...

Time magazine announced the winner of the 2017 Person of the Year: the #MeToo movement:

Time refers to the women behind the movement as "The Silence Breakers." And though this movement has received widespread attention this year, the hashtag was actually started 10 years ago by Tarana Burke.

#MeToo rose to prominence as a social media campaign in the wake of high-profile accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. After actress Alyssa Milano popularized the hashtag, thousands of women began sharing their stories about the pervasive damage wrought by sexual harassment and by "open secrets" about abuse.

The movement's empowering reach could be seen in the platform on which Time announced its choice: the Today show. It was just one week ago that NBC fired the morning program's longtime and powerful co-host, Matt Lauer, over a detailed complaint of "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace."

While the most high-profile #MeToo stories have come from women and men who work in the movies and media, the Time article also features women who work hourly jobs, some of whom want to remain anonymous. The magazine's cover portrait includes strawberry picker Isabel Pascual, lobbyist Adama Iwu and former Uber engineer Susan Fowler along with Ashley Judd and Taylor Swift.

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day.

Many women are also striking today for "A Day Without Women" - women are encouraged to stay home from work, spend no money, and wear red. Here's some links about the day:

• Information about the day on the UN website
• Tiffanie Wen of The Daily Beast talks about the day's history 
• Laurel Pinson explains why a day without women matters
• 7 women explain why they're striking
• People react to Trump's tweets about the day and it's glorious

I'm working today, mainly because I have a week vacation coming up and really didn't want to miss another day of work this month. But I'm with everyone in spirit! Also going out with some girlfriends tonight and visiting a woman-owned restaurant.

The Verdict on Racism and Sexism

I'm currently in an online discussion about whether we should continue singing music that is outdated at best and misogynist at worst. The verdict is still out on that one, but it's generating some interesting perspectives.

So it's interesting timing that these two things came across my inbox today:

• The Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado man may get a new trial, due to racist comments by a juror during deliberations - it was a close to decision (5-3).
• New research published in Psychological Science finds evidence of prejudice transfer; finding out a person is sexist leads to the perception that the person may also be racist (and vice versa). This "transfer" was mostly driven by the degree of social dominance (showing a strong preference for their in-group and comfort with social inequalities) demonstrated by the perpetrator.

Checks and Balances

When Trump writes a book about his time as President, I suspect it will be called Everyone Who Disagrees with Me is Wrong, featuring a forward by Putin. In response to Judge James Robart's block of Trump's Muslim travel ban, Trump tweeted "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" Dean Obeidallah of CNN dissects everything wrong with that statement:

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump may have unleashed his most bone-chilling tweet -- at least to those who believe the United States should not become a Trump-led dictatorship. And I don't make that comment simply to be provocative or without giving it a great deal of thought. Our democracy is far more fragile than some might grasp and Trump is engaging in a concerted effort to undermine the workings of it.

Let's be blunt, because the stakes demand it: An independent federal judiciary is our last, best hope at preventing Trump from violating the US Constitution and illegally grabbing power. And Trump has to understand that, hence his attempt to undermine it.

The President truly appears to be leading a master class in transforming the United States into a dictatorship. Trump -- and it's fair to assume it is by design -- has sought to undermine anyone or anything that tries to counter him.

It's frightening to think where this could lead. For example, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in the historic case of Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in our public schools was unconstitutional, it took then-President Dwight Eisenhower to implement that decision.

Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus had refused to follow the Court's decision and instead surrounded an all-white high school in his state with National Guard troops to prevent its integration. Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the Supreme Court's seminal decision and allow black students to attend the school.

Would Trump do the same if he had passionately disagreed with the Court's decision or would he simply ignore it while attacking the legitimacy of our judiciary, sparking a constitutional crisis? And would certain Trump-supporting federal agency heads, or even federal officers, refuse to follow court orders (or at least do it very slowly) because Trump has convinced them the federal judiciary's decisions cannot be trusted?

Since Trump took office, and especially with regard to this travel ban, people have been quoting the words on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" But Judge Robart's block prompted artists Thea Sousa and Sam Machado to reference another important force in our country - justice:

I Got This. #TrumpBan #MuslimBan #cartoon pic.twitter.com/ojVK3FGQhn

— Sam Machado (@samscenarist) February 5, 2017

Trump took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution. But that oath isn't enough, and our founding fathers knew that; in their extraordinary genius, they set up a system of checks and balances, to keep any one branch of government from wielding too much power. Trump's executive order shows how little he cares about the words on the Status of Liberty, but this tweet is far worse: His attempt to delegitimize the judicial branch shows just how little he cares about our Constitution. And that is far more terrifying.

How Men and Women Use Cities and Services

This is probably a click-bait article, but I still found it fascinating - an examination of how men and women use cities, as well as some of the things cities around the world have done based on those results:

In 1999, officials in Vienna handed out a questionnaire about how people in the city used transportation. The men filled it out in five minutes: go to work in the morning, come home at night. The women couldn't stop writing.

The things they wrote were about dropping the kids off at school on the way to work, or taking them to the doctor some mornings, or helping their own aging parents buy groceries, or picking the kids up from activities.

It was an extremely more varied pattern of use—with far more walking and public transport—and one that resulted in several changes to the city's infrastructure: easier access to public transport, wider pavements, ramps for pushchairs and buggies. This thinking is part of a movement called gender mainstreaming—assessing how planning and policy decisions will specifically affect both women and men.

Some of the changes cities have made include a stop request system, that allows bus passengers to be dropped off closer to their homes, grouping public services frequently used by women together, and redesigning neighborhoods and apartment complexes.

New Survey of Americans Who Are Transgender

The National Center for Transgender Equality recently released the results of a survey of 27,715 Americans who are transgender, which accounts for about 2 percent of transgender Americans. The survey paints a clear, and heartbreaking, picture of what life is like for many people who are transgender

It found that 12 percent of transgender people were verbally harassed in public restrooms within the previous year, 1 percent were physically attacked and 1 percent were sexually assaulted. Nine percent said someone denied them access to a bathroom.

Besides the restroom data, the survey turned up new findings, including that 29 percent of transgender people were living in poverty compared to 14 percent for the U.S. population at large, and that 39 percent experienced serious psychological distress within the previous month, nearly eight times the rate for the general population.

Other results reinforced previous findings, for example, showing that 40 percent have attempted suicide in their lifetimes compared with 5 percent for the U.S. population, and 7 seven percent attempted suicide in the previous year, nearly 12 times the rate for the U.S. population.

This is only the second large survey of transgender persons; the first, the "National Transgender Discrimination Survey" was conducted in 2008 and 2009, and published in 2011. Until now, researchers have depended on that data to answer their questions, but there were some problems with how the survey was conducted. Most importantly, it was not conducted in a way to allow researchers to generalize findings to the population of transgender persons. This means that they were unable to determine whether certain issues and experiences were more or less common among transgender persons than they were among the general population. The new survey does allow those comparisons, hence the text above highlights the difference between transgender persons and the general population in terms of poverty, psychological distress, and suicide attempts.

The survey was conducted before the North Carolina House Bill 2 was passed - a bill that requires transgender persons to use the restroom corresponding to the gender assigned at birth. This bill caused much controversy, with many boycotts and protests, and it likely cost Governor Pat McCrory the election (he finally conceded, BTW).

So the tl;dr: transgender persons are the victims, not the perpetrators, in public restrooms. It's time we stop arguing bathroom bills are about anything more than hatred and discrimination.

In Response to Trump's Flag-Burning Tweet

I'm seeing lots of discussion on Facebook today, in response to a tweet by Trump that flag-burning should be a crime, and people convicted of flag-burning should lose their citizenship. In response, I have three quotes for you.

First, let's look back at the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis added)

Now, from the Supreme Court ruling in Texas v. Johnson (1989):

Under the circumstances, Johnson's burning of the flag constituted expressive conduct, permitting him to invoke the First Amendment.

Finally, in response to Trump's insistence that flag-burning could be punishable as treason, I quote once again from the Constitution, this time from Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

So, the tl;dr - flag burning is not illegal. It's free speech, and no law can be passed to make it illegal unless the Supreme Court reverses that ruling. So any new law would be struck down as unconstitutional. In the unlikely event that the Supreme Court reverses its ruling, any law that calls flag-burning treason would also be struck down as unconstitutional.

And that, my friends, is how it works.

A Champion for Privacy

One of my favorite quotes from The Social Network is, "The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink." When we post something, it's not easy to make it go away. Even if you delete the content, there are many ways your content could be around for a very long time, such as sites that archive old web pages, and downloads and screenshots by users. So what happens when someone posts something of yours - a very private photograph - for the world to see, save, and share? And more importantly, who is the champion for that person who has had their privacy violated and their intimate life shared?

Enter Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn attorney whose practice specializes in sexual privacy, and who is fighting against what has become known as "revenge porn" - the most common example of such is sharing naked photos of an ex, but can also include sharing personal contact information and publishing ads on hookup services, purporting to be from the target, or recording and sharing illegal acts, such as sexual assault. And laws against these acts, known as nonconsensual porn laws, are also being used to charge people who steal private photos from people they don't know, such as in 2014 when Ryan Collins hacked into devices owned by Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities. Collins was sentenced to 18 months in jail for his crimes.

The article follows one of Goldberg's cases, but also includes lots of attention to Goldberg's stance on the issues, and her approach in working with her clients:

Goldberg tries to impress on her clients that they should not feel ashamed. I once asked her how she responds to the argument that people who value their privacy should not send naked pictures in the first place. Goldberg replied that this was judgmental and reductive. She mentioned the case of Erin Andrews, the former ESPN reporter, who was filmed, without her knowledge, by a man staying in an adjoining hotel room. “Are you just supposed to never take your clothes off?” she said. “You can’t get naked, you can’t take a shower?” She spoke of upskirting—the voyeuristic practice of taking unauthorized pictures beneath a woman’s dress. “Are you never supposed to go out in public in a skirt?” Goldberg said. “Or what about images where somebody’s face has been Photoshopped onto somebody else’s naked body? What’s getting distributed isn’t necessarily images that were consented to in the first place. That’s why it’s the distribution you have to focus on.”

Goldberg went on, “But, even if you did take a naked picture and send it to somebody, that’s not necessarily reckless behavior. That’s time-honored behavior! G.I.s going off to war used to have pics of their wife or girlfriend in a pinup pose. It’s often part of intimate communication. It can be used as a weapon, but, the fact is, almost anything can be used as a weapon.”

Legal scholar Danielle Citron, who wrote a book called Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, argues these invasions of privacy can be considered civil rights violations, because these attacks disproportionately affect women and minorities and can have long-term impacts on their personal and professional lives. In fact, in some of Goldberg's work with students who were victimized (or bullied because of the online content) at school, she files complaints with school offices for civil rights, as well as Title IX coordinators. Unfortunately, it seems these cases are only going to increase in frequency and severity:

And, since the election of Donald Trump, she says, she’s seen a “drastic uptick” in people seeking her firm’s help—evidence of what she worries is a “new license to be cruel.”

Please, readers, be kind to each other. And no matter how bad someone hurts you, be careful what you post online. If someone sent you private photos, it means they trusted you. Don't betray that trust.

Fewer Police Shootings in Chicago

A little over 2 years ago, Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by Chicago police office, Jason Van Dyke. Though initially, police supervisors ruled the case as justifiable homicide, the first responding officer as well as countless Chicago citizens felt there was no need to use force against McDonald, let alone lethal force. In fact, autopsy reports indicated that 9 of the 16 shots were in McDonald's back, suggesting he was not even facing the office who shot him. (This is despite information in the initial report that stated McDonald lunged at Van Dyke, and that was the reason Van Dyke fired.) Video footage of the shooting, that was released under court order in 2015, showed multiple inconsistencies with the initial police report, and Van Dyke was eventually charged with (and is awaiting trial for) six counts of first degree murder.

Multiple protests of this incident of police brutality have been held, and the Chicago Police Department has been investigated over its use of aggressive and hostile tactics. And it appears this increased scrutiny has helped - police shootings and civilian complaints have decreased:

Complaint counts have been declining since 2012, but starting in mid-November 2015 — about two weeks before the video was released — complaints against police dropped at a rapid rate.

Police shootings have shown a similar decline. From the month in which the McDonald video was released through April of this year, the annual rate of shootings has remained lower than at any other point in our data, which goes back to September 2007. There have been four months since McDonald’s shooting in which there were no police shootings, something that occurred only twice in the seven years before the shooting.

You can view data for yourself, through the Invisible Institute, a journalistic production company on the South Side of Chicago that promotes transparency from public institutions, including the police.

With Liberty and Justice For All

One of my favorite topics in social psychology is justice, or rather, how individuals determine whether something is just or fair. I did one of my candidacy exams in grad school on justice, citing work on, for instance, belief in a just world and Norman Finkel's contribution of commonsense justice. The various justice frameworks certainly influence how I perceive interactions with others, and I often remind myself of these different approaches anytime the phrase "not fair" enters my mind.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are 2-3 overarching frameworks (depending on who you ask): distributive justice (which deals with the different types of distributions of outcomes believed to be fair), procedural justice (which states that, as long as the process is fair, the outcome is believed to be fair), and (the potential third) interactional justice (which is sort of an extension of procedural justice, with some attention to distribution of outcomes). Of these, procedural justice is arguably what most political processes are based upon. By clearly delineating the process through which decisions (such as elections) are made, and by ensuring those procedures are followed, we can be confident that the outcome of that process is just.

The current election cycle has had an underlying subtheme of justice since the very beginning, especially with regard to a certain political candidate. Earlier this year, a New York Times article discussed Trump as the Anti-PC Vote; that is, he appeals to people who believe that political correctness is hurting America, forcing the majority to submit to the will of the minority. Trump gives his supporters (which polls suggest are predominantly men) an outlet for their "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" feelings and a perceived opportunity to take back their country. Trump heightens these feelings, through in-group/out-group tactics - othering and scapegoating - paradoxically blaming minority groups for their own suffering while also blaming them for making the majority group suffer. I say paradoxically because in order to do both, they have to be both powerless and powerful.

But one part of Trump's rhetoric is especially related to the concept of justice: he has stated on multiple occasions that he will only trust the outcome of the election if he wins:

As Trump has fallen in the polls, he has said that the electoral system is rigged against him and that rampant voter fraud could rob him of votes, even though documented cases of such fraud are rare. Trump said Thursday that undocumented immigrants are illegally voting in elections, even though only U.S. citizens are allowed to register to vote, and that Democrats are voting on behalf of people who have died, even though most jurisdictions regularly update their voter rolls.

“This is having nothing to do with me but having to do with the future of our country,” Trump said. “We have to have fairness.”

This is a frightening notion - not just because the thought of a Trump presidency scares the sh*t out of me. He is making a mockery of our system, inciting further division and uproar among his supporters, that will carry long past Election Day. He is giving his followers license to distrust any process that doesn't deliver the outcome they want, promoting circular reasoning over critical thinking skills. And he is furthering sexism by insinuating that the only way a woman could win the presidency (or really any contest against a man) is by cheating.

Of the different justice frameworks, Trump's seems most like distributive justice. In distributive justice, there are three distribution rules that can be applied: equality, in which each party receives an equal share; equity (also sometimes known as merit), where an individual party’s share is based on the amount of input from that party; and need, where share is based on whether the party has a deficit or has been slighted in some other distribution. Trump's approach, however, does not fall cleanly in one of these rules. It's sort of equity/merit, where his estimation of input is subjective and egocentric, but also a perversion of need, because he's convinced himself (and his followers) that the system is rigged and his win will reverse some of that. And who has rigged the system?

"I think that the media and the Clintons and Obama have all rigged the system and they're trying to make us all believe that she's the winner."

So, among others, they are Obama (his stand-in for scapegoating the entire African-American community) and Clinton (his stand-in for scapegoating women). In fact, the news that Clinton would win if only women voted led many of Trump's followers to proclaim we should "repeal the 19th amendment." Yes, it seems his idea (and his followers' idea) of making America great again is taking it back to a time when only white men could vote.

This is not fairness or justice; this is a mockery of the concept. This is not how someone worthy of being our leader determines justice; this is how a child does it.

Underwritten Female Characters

I encountered this great video on Facebook this morning:

The video references one of the great contributions to film theory, the Bechdel test, which I've mentioned in a previous blogpost, but never delved into what exactly it means.

The Bechdel test (actually developed by Liz Wallace and publicized by Allison Bechdel) is based on the following questions. In a movie:

1. Are there at least 2 female characters?
2. Do those characters talk to each other?
3. About something other than a man?

A simple test that many movies fail. The test was revised with the addition that the two female characters should have names. As many have pointed out, it's a rather low bar for movies and passing it doesn't mean that women are being portrayed in realistic ways. They can still be "underwritten" even if they talk about something other than men. After all, the video above even passes the Bechdel test.

The News Makes Me Sad

There are many events in recent days that have made me very sad. But the reactions have given me hope that there is still good in the world.

A couple of weeks ago, the sentence for Brock Turner, a man convicted of three counts of sexual assault, was announced - even though the crimes could carry a 14-year sentence, and the prosecution requested 6 years, Turner was sentenced to only six months. His victim read a letter about what effect this event had on her, her family, and her life.

Turner's parents, on the other hand, wrote letters talking about how their son won't eat steak anymore, how much student loan debt his siblings have, and that the family doesn't feel like decorating their new house.

While I was heartbroken to hear about this slap on the wrist, I was relieved to see I was not alone in finding the sentence unjust.

I'm reminded of an episode of one of my favorite shows, Six Feet Under. If you've never seen the show, it's about a family-run funeral home. Someone dies at the beginning of each episode, usually (but not always) the person for whom a funeral will be arranged. One episode began with a young woman leaving a club. She dug her keys out of her purse, and walked nervously across the street. Suddenly, two men appear some distance behind her and cat call her. She begins to walk faster. The two men pursue, asking where she's going. She begins to run. Not paying attention to anything beyond getting away from the two men, she is hit by a car and killed.

It turns out the two men were her friends, playing a joke on her. As they talk about the incident later, they tearfully ask why she was so afraid.

I had a similar experience last night. I was walking home from a late dinner, around 10pm, trying to get my last steps of day. A car pulls up next to me as I'm waiting for the light. I hear a young man's voice say "Hey, want a hit?" (or whatever they were smoking), followed by "Want a ride?" I ignore him, praying that he won't say anything else or escalate. I wait impatiently for the light to change, thinking about what my response would be if he says something else, or if the friend with him I can hear laughing will join in. Knowing that my response could just as easily anger them and cause them to escalate as get them to leave me alone.

The light changes and I hurry across the street. They wait a moment, then turn and drive down another street.

This is an experience most women can identify with. And unfortunately, many women experience something far worse. We don't know if or when it's going to happen. We don't know if the man who appears kind or helpful will turn out to be a predator.

I took self-defense classes in college, skills I pray I never have to use. I try to stay aware of my surroundings, and avoid being distracted, hoping that I'm just being overly cautious. But I also don't blame women when the worst happens. And it will continue to happen as long as we try to pin some blame on women for what another person did. We don't ask victims of other crimes why they had so much to drink, why they were wearing that outfit, why they were walking alone.

As I said, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people I know who jumped to the defense of the victim, and commented on the injustice that Turner's sentence was so lenient. This could have been a textbook case of victim blaming. Instead, it got people talking - honestly - about sexual assault and how we need to focus our attention on the man's behavior instead of the woman's.

While we were still reacting to the sentence, the shooting in Orlando happened. As with the Turner case, I was glad to see the outpouring of support from many people I know. Unfortunately, the event is also fueling debate, with many people failing to see that the fact that a man who was under investigation by the FBI for connections to terrorists was able to acquire a gun should be a sign that we need stricter gun control.

I continue to be sad. But I'm not alone. As I was driving home yesterday evening, I drove through downtown of my neighborhood, and noticed the flags of Brookfield at half-mast:

The Province of Men: Gender Bias Research on the First Day of Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month (read more about it here ). So it may be for this reason that one of my psychology list-servs sent out several links to recent research on gender disparities.

Two used freely available data to examine differences in perceptions about the quality of women's work and value of products sold by women.

The first study (summary and full preprint) examined open source code on GitHub, and found that code written by women was more likely to be approved by users than code written by men, but only when gender of the coder was hidden. Specifically, the approval rate was 78.6% for "blind" code written by women (compared to 74.6% for code written by men) but was only 62.5% for code written by women when gender was specified on the user's profile.

The second study found that products sold on eBay by women received fewer bids and lower final prices than the same products sold by men. Unlike GitHub, gender is not available on a seller's profile, but a supplemental study by the researchers found that people could identify gender of the seller based on copy in the product posting.

Another examined the way women are perceived when they seek out positions of power or promotions/raises. They begin with Hillary Clinton as an example case (though, as they are quick to point out, a very unique one). That is, when Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State, her approval rating was 69%. Contrast that with current sentiment about Clinton, including mistrust and the perception that she is loud and angry. The author argues that approval of Clinton drops when she seeks a new position and "soars" after we've seen her do the job. It's the difference between assertive men being called a "boss" and assertive women being called "bossy" - one is a compliment, the other is harsh insult.

As I've blogged about before, personal characteristics like gender can be used to interpret behavior and evaluate an individual, particularly when you don't have other important information to make that evaluation (such as expertise necessary to determine what "good" looks like, or personal knowledge of the individual that outweighs these details). And any evaluation using these characteristics will draw upon stereotypes about how a member of that group is "supposed" to act. Correcting for these stereotypes is liable to be difficult, if they are firmly ingrained, and suppressing this information can result in a stronger reliance on that information (see a previous blog post about thought suppression).

So what do we do with this information? The first study, on GitHub submissions, would suggest that one correction for gender bias is simply to remove gender from the equation, by blinding evaluators to this information. Of course, this 1) isn't feasible in many cases, such as in politics, and 2) does nothing to change stereotypes about gender and expertise. We need strong women. We need women who excel in stereotypically male fields. And we need to change the way we evaluate and interpret women's behavior. Unfortunately, there's no quick way to do that, and like many cultural changes there will be some growing pains.

The only way is to keep pressing forward and pushing boundaries whenever possible. There is a compliance technique in social psychology and business that springs to mind: foot-in-the-door technique, which involves getting a person to agree to a large request through smaller, incremental requests. As the individual goes along with the small requests, that get larger over time, they may experience a change in attitude, through processes like cognitive dissonance. Each small push toward large-scale social change can bring about attitude shifts. One could argue that any policy change (women's suffrage, civil rights, changes to marriage laws) is obtained through small requests that grow over time. But for a change this large, no single person can carry the burden.

The big question, of course, is what will happen in the 2016 Presidential Election. I certainly would never tell anyone who to vote for, and would not suggest one vote for Hillary because she is a woman. But neither should people continue to negatively evaluate a candidate simply because she is a woman.

Marriage, Anniversaries, and the Striking Down of DOMA

Today is a very special day. Today I celebrate my third anniversary of marriage. Today is also the day that the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. I feel very privileged to share my anniversary with a day that I hope signals massive change in how we view the construct of marriage.

In the distant past, a wedding was a luxury generally afforded to the wealthy. Common law marriages were established so that the poor could still be considered married, even if they could not afford to go through the ritual of marriage. Even in more recent centuries, when the United States was expanding Westward, many towns did not have a church, and so couples would move in together and start their families, and have the wedding when a circuit rider (a pastor, usually of a Protestant denomination, who rode around preaching to the settlements) came around and could perform the ceremony - sometimes months or years later.

Today, weddings are still an expensive undertaking, but there are many options for people. Small wedding chapels, justice of the peace ceremonies - hell, you can even have Elvis marry you in Vegas, something I half-jokingly referenced multiple times while my fiance and I complained about wedding planning and its costs. A wedding, and marriage, is no longer a luxury of the very wealthy.

Instead, it is the luxury of the straight. It has been used as a new form of division,  this time not between the wealthy and the poor, but between the heterosexual and the homosexual. Say what you will about the religious underpinnings of the concept of marriage - the way we think of marriage today is as a contract between two willing parties. Two people who wish to be bound together in some way, whether that be under God, under the State, or all of the above. Even among people who generally think of marriage in the same way (say, as a contract under God), the definition of marriage will still vary widely. I'm sure my idea of marriage differs very much from others who share my faith and religious practice. It's a very personal concept and decision.

So even in the face of all that variability - as well as all the variability in opinions on gender roles (don't even get me started on that one - this blog post would be way too long) - why do so many people still insist that marriage is only to occur between a man and a woman? And further, why is there this belief that allowing a man to marry another man, or a woman to marry another woman, will somehow change the definition and meaning of a given couple's marriage? Like I said, the definition and meaning is a very personal thing. And nothing anyone else does can alter it.

I'm happy that I was able to marry my husband. And I'm happy that others, who have been denied this privilege in the past, will hopefully soon be able to share this institution.

Thoughtfully yours,
~Sara