We are a group of young women at Northern Illinois University. As students in a Women' Studies course, we are taking steps to change the norm of marriage for an Action Research Project. Marriage is a privilege and what people don’t realize is that they can walk into a church, a backyard, a beach, or a court room to tie the knot. It should be this way for everyone. We are a group who are fighting for equality. No matter who you are: straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or blue, everyone should have the right to marry whomever they want. When you think of the word marriage what comes to mind? Most likely you will think of a women walking down an aisle in a pretty white dress and waiting for her is a handsome man in a black tux. The problem with this picture is that it is heteronormative. When the word marriage comes to mind we want people to think of not just heterosexuals, but also homosexuals and other queer people. Having equal marriage will change the lives of many people.
On November 5, 2013, the Illinois House approved the bill for the freedom to marry and it was signed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on November 20, 2013. This change is effective as of June 1, officially making the state of Illinois the 15th state to allow the freedom to marry. As fortunate as it is that Illinois grants the freedom to marry, there are still 35 more state that do not, and this is a major problem. Colorado, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, and Wisconsin currently offer benefits and protections for same-sex couples (though same states offer more protections than others), but this is simply not good enough. The fight is not over yet. Help us fight for equality! OUR THOUGHT Megan: Individually I learned information I did not know about equal marriage. I did not know the different privileges that heterosexual married couples got that same-sex couples did not. I also was able to hear other opinions from other people about this issue. This helped in my view on marriage altogether. Marriage is far more important than I would have ever thought. Shatece: This Action Research Project was definitely an eye opener for me. As an LGBT Ally, it was incredible for me to see the change in the state of Illinois and to know that this group actively supported that. I learned the importance of allowing marriage equality in all states. There are so many privileges heterosexual couples are given just for being two people that love each other, but when those couples are people who happen to be the same-sex, they are denied those privileges. It was very insightful to learn how much having the freedom to marry means to, not only same sex couples, but also to their children, who do not receive all of the benefits that heterosexual families receive. It was also really nice to hear from people who shared the same beliefs about marriage equality that I do. Michelle: I have always been pro marriage equality because I've been close to a few people that have struggled with not being able to have the same rights that heterosexual couples have. I think what surprised me the most was peoples reactions to asking them what they felt. Growing up in a small town and going out in my community the people were very uniformed of what actually goes on. It was a great experience to hear others opinion and actually give my own opinion and teach people about things we researched and things we learned in class. It was good to hear from a wide variety of people so I'm glad we did our action this way. As a group we learned that this was not an easy task to address. Meeting together was hard due to scheduling. Meeting with our c/c partner was also difficult because of everyone’s schedule and his schedule as well. What we would have done differently is to try and meet more with our partner even if it was not as a whole group. Also due to this lack of meeting together we were unfortunately unable to give our partner our post cards. This was a huge part of our project that could have gone better. Even though we were not able to give our partner our post cards we still thought that we were able to record our effectiveness of our action. This project prepared us for being able to go out and make our voices heard on an issue. Now that we have an understanding of one issue that the LGBT community faces, we now can take action in other issues. Everyone should be treated equal no matter their sexual orientation, race, religion, etc. As individuals we now have the confidence to fight for a cause. |
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