Kim Kardashian’s teary-eyed expression graced the cover of People Magazine last week, with “Single Lady” in bold print. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the 72-day marriage resulted in divorce.
The marriage of the infamous Kim Kardashian and professional basketball player Kris Humphries seemed too good to be true from the beginning. With the cheesy pictures in magazines and scripted episodes of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” it seemed like every young girl’s dream. But behind all the glamour of the E! television specials about the happy couple, whose story seemed like such a fairy tale, there seemed to only be a big fat joke.
The marriage between Kim and Kris was a mockery of the institution of marriage. To Kardashian, marriage is trivial and insignificant, yet just six states allow gay couples to marry. The now former Mrs. Humphries was able to marry and divorce in a mere two months while countless gay couples are refused the right to marry, even when it’s true love not manufactured for TV. Kim and Kris’ failed marriage was a charade of what marriage is all about. I thought it was “till death do us part,” not “till the fame wears off, and the ratings dip.”
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of marriages end in divorce when the bride is 25 years or older. When one in two marriages between a man and a woman are likely to crumble, it’s embarrassing that we deny gay couples the right to marriage.
Opponents say gay marriage will ruin the sanctity of marriage and defile its purity and goodness, but it’s perfectly acceptable for Kim and Kris to break it off after just 10 weeks.
Gay couples will defile marriage and take away from the sanctity of the act? Heterosexuals have done a mighty fine job of that on their own.
Let’s face it. The two-part E! exclusive of the wedding was sappy, overdramatic, and maybe a little forced. What does this tell the public about the so-called sacred, binding institution of marriage?
Apparently, it’s perfectly acceptable for Kim and Kris to break it off after just 72 days. Getting married only for the sake of ratings and reviews is a scam engineered by the couple and frankly, it’s embarrassing. Gay Americans are denied the right to get married every day, yet we allow two celebrities to enter into this sacred union for a measly 72 days’ worth of marital bliss before they call it quits.
Why should gay couples fight so hard for marriage when we hand it out so hastily to people looking to turn a quick dime on a publicity stunt? Marriage is a way for couples to make their love tangible for the world to see. It’s more than a feeling or a television special, it’s a status. It’s being able to be recognized in public as husband and wife, wife and wife, or husband and husband. Marriage goes beyond a publicity stunt.
— Rosie de Queljoe is a journalism freshman. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
