Marriage: It's not pie.

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.

But also, the reverse.

The Washington Post has published yet another edgy article about polyamory and once again we're clutching our pearls on both sides of the aisle.

Wait, you can have a wedding if you're a throuple?!

Oh god, not another completely superficial article about polyamory.

What caught my eye, though, was not the polyamory, although the focus on triads and the superficiality was once again tiresome. Instead my focus fell on the following.

And as a genderqueer, pansexual person holding this ceremony in 2015 — before same-sex marriage was legal throughout the U.S. — Rachael wanted to stand in solidarity with queer people who couldn’t legally marry their partners, Rachael said.

As long as Obergefell stands, my complaint here is pretty moot, but I will say it anyway: people having heterosexual marriages is not what kept queer marriages from happening. There are 1,138 federal rights associated with marriage, and anyone who wants them should avail themselves of them. There are plenty of reasons not to get married, but “because my friends can't” is not a good reason. What does that actually do? Does your state somehow grant rights to queer people based on you not getting married? Have your queer friends said “look, I know you want those 1,138 rights, but it makes me sad, so you shouldn't get them” to you, in so many words? This form of “solidarity” is bullshit, it means nothing.

My wife and I got married in Connecticut in 2009. It was the first state to offer marriage (as opposed to civil union) without requiring residency, so we drove up from Virginia and did it. Of course the piece of paper meant nothing back home – and indeed, Virginia had some very restrictive laws on this – but it felt good to us to be married. In 2013, we began filing federal taxes as married when the Defense of Marriage Act fell, and in 2015 we became actually really married when Obergefell was passed.

Would any of my straight friends getting married prior to 2015 have changed any of this? Absolutely not. I'd much rather they have voted, donated, and contacted their officials than “stand in solidarity” with me.

There is a very real possibility that Obergefell will be struck down at some point in the future. If that happens, I don't expect any straight folks to get divorced to “support” me. What good does that do? You'd have to have a whole lot of divorces to have a tax impact, and that's not going to happen.

Straight people, I don't care if you're married. You refusing to buy a pie does not mean the government is going to give me your pie. The fact that articles are still talking about this seven years after Obergefell means people still don't understand this basic concept.