Recently, I've noticed a slew of people--straight, white women, to be specific--referring to their significant others as their "partners." Doesn't use of this term constitute an appropriation of what has essentially become a stand-in term for "husband" or "wife" among gays and lesbians? Women who are legally married to men are afforded significant legal and cultural protections that gay, lesbian, and alternative lifestyle types (poly people, for instance) CANNOT access. Using the term "partner" seems akin to saying, regarding racism, "I'm colorblind. Color doesn't matter to me." But differences, and our attention to them, do matter; they highlight significant inequalities and differing levels of privilege.
I understand wanting to posit that one's marriage is indeed a partnership between equals. However, your marital partnership (and my own, to be fair) is NOT, in legal terms, the same as the relationship between two gay men or two lesbians in this state. It's not the same as cohabiting. It's not the same as a boyfriend or girlfriend or lover. It cannot be. I can file taxes jointly, use my husband's health insurance, visit him in the hospital, collect benefits in the event of his untimely demise and much more without doing a damn thing other than simply be married.
Further, I am in a culturally acceptable hetero marriage. Many people in this culture wouldn't view me, or the validity of my relationships, the same way if I had a wife, or two husbands. To refer to a husband as a "partner," while it may sound more mature and egalitarian of me, would imply that I'm somehow in the same boat as all the GLBT couples and alt people who can't be married.
But I am not in the same boat. My (hetero) marital status gives me privilege that they do not have access to.
Why don't we name our relationships accurately while we work to allow adults--any adults--who want to get legally married to do so?
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