Jul 21st, 2006
“The Point” is much bigger than one divorce.
An AP story about the Goodridge break-up is published in over 100 media outlets today. (Strangely, Advocate.com’s article refers to their 10-year-old daughter as a “teenage child.”)
Expect a deluge of reflective commentaries on op-ed pages across the country this weekend.
The news is making its way around the blogosphere too. Those who are asking “What was the point?” are totally missing the point.
The landmark case was not about the Goodridge family, per se. They symbolized something bigger than themselves. (And the stress of that could very well be to blame, at least in part, for the relationship’s dissolution.)
The point of the case was not about Julie and Hillary Goodridge getting married. The point was achieving marriage equality in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Boston Globe story (which appropriately gives a nod to Bay Windows for getting the scoop) reports that there have been 7,300 same-sex marriages (and 45 divorces) since it became legal in Massachusetts. I doubt any of those couples are hearing the news about Julie and Hillary and wondering, “What was the point?”
You know… I”m an absolute fanatic about the permanence of marriage. I feel horrifed any time a couple I know (of any orientation) breaks up.
But I think you are be on to something when you say:
I can barely imagine the stress of being the one couple who is expected to symbolize marriage equality itself. The public, poster-child role would loom horribly over the management of what is supposed to be the most intimate of relationships.
NPR had a sympathetic opinion piece on Morning Edition today, which mentioned that the stress of being an example must have been hard on a relationship that had held together for 20 years *before* they were married. The piece didn’t mention that they have a child, though. It was as if that fact would just make the story too complicated so she left it out.