Valentines’s Day

Monday is Valentine’s Day. This weekend and Monday, many people will be getting married. Married people will be celebrating their anniversaries, or simply having a night out, as will other people hoping to get married someday, or maybe just enjoying being together in public.

If you are in such a situation, good for you and enjoy it.

Whether you are or not, take a moment to think about all of the people who can’t marry the person or person(s) they love, or can’t so much as hold hands in public without being accosted. Think about the people, consenting adults, who have to completely hide their relationships because they could be sent to prison for simply having sex in private. Think about the people who have to hide who they are because, where they live, they could be killed for being who they are. Think about the people who can’t accept gifts from their their lover(s) at work, or even a loving comment on their Facebook wall, because it would out them and get them fired.

This is what goes on because some people are being denied their rights to sex, love, and marriage. A woman can’t marry the woman she loves in most states in the US. She can in Canada and some other countries, but most countries still deny this freedom to marry. Hopefully, the US will change that as national policy soon. In most of the world, a man can’t marry both the women he loves, despite both women being in favor of such a marriage. Hopefully, that will change in Canada soon, and many other places after that. People like Liz and Ryan can find very few countries that would recognize their marriage, and we need full marriage equality before people like Linda, Melissa, and Matthew can tie the knot.

So enjoy Valentine’s Day if you are able, but think for a moment about the people who will only be able to fully enjoy theirs when we have full marriage equality.