Marriage in Colors

In my pursuit of a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, there have been many important things I've been taught. Among them is the idea of our clients as holistic beings. It is easy to look at them through the scope of their issues, their culture, or many other factors. However, we do them a disservice when we their whole being as a function of only one part of their identity. We owe it to our clients to see them as a confluence of all the things around them and within them. Yet, this is exactly what I see in marriage equality and why I'm having a hard time just rejoicing. There is a lack of acknowledgement of issues within the marriage equality movement and issues that are concurrent with marriage equality, such as a lack of racial solidarity in the LGBT community and transgender rights.

An overwhelming number faces of marriage equality are White. I challenge you to do an image search on Google and not find the same results. It's as though the movement cannot give equal coverage to non-White faces in the community who also seek to be married, who are affected by the same violation of human rights. And, before you say, 'Well maybe less racial minorities want to get married,' also consider that, despite the statistics (less racial minorities compared to Whites in the country), there are very few pictures of couples that reach the media that have at least one partner that is not White, and even less that are both not White.

This unsettling reality is one I have noticed as a Black gay man, but also in doing research on LGBT people of color. Our voices are systematically muted, our images invisible. There are very few characters on tv who are not heterosexual and who are Black. When they are Black, they are made into a stereotype. Let's also consider the lack of visibility for LGBT people who aren't White or Black. So, I find it problematic that I'm affected by the same things, yet I don't see my face in representations of LGBT life in America, especially in marriage.

Marriage equality, while a major issue, is not the only issue affecting the LGBT community. The B and T are there for a reason. They were there during Stonewall. They are affected by the same stigma in America, extended to a community that is supposed to accept them. Transgender people aren't covered by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act supposedly because 'it wouldn't get passed' if they were. They also often have to go through great lengths to undergo transition, due to issues with insurance companies not covering the surgeries and procedures and the legal steps of changing one's gender on identification.

So, I can feel joy that maybe we are on the verge of important change. I want to marry my boyfriend one day and have that marriage recognized in every state and to have the same financial and legal benefits as my heterosexual married friends and NOT have to implement the complicated legal strategy I have to be able to do something as simple as sit at his bedside if he is in the hospital. Yet, I cannot ignore that other work needs to be done, nor that the marriage equality movement is completely devoid of problems.

What's your take on this issue? Am I just worrying needlessly?

And one more question: Does having a White boyfriend mean I'm more likely to be considered a 'face' of marriage equality? If he were any other race, would we have the same opportunity to be one representation of same-sex marriage?

To give you some hope, here are some pictures of same-sex couples that are not White :)