Bi-Invisibility

Looking at the panoply of DOMA & NO8 articles from USA, plus other marriage equality pieces internationally, I cannot help but notice the continual disregarding of bisexuals from the discourse.

The advertisements and their spoofs, be they informative, incendiary, or both, regularly (I'd like to say always but I think I'd be proved wrong) ignore the fact that bisexuals are interested in marriage equality, not just because they are allies to the cause, but because they are directly invested in the outcome. Many bisexuals (pansexuals, etc.) go on to marry persons of the same gender identity/expression which would constitute them being in a partnership which would necessarily be impossible to acknowledge, celebrate and concretise in some parts of the world, either through civil partnership (or similar, local binding) or marriage (or similar, local binding).

Are these couples therefore in a gay or lesbian partnership that seeks permanency through marriage? What if one of the couple is a lesbian and the other a pansexual woman - is their relationship necessarily a 'lesbian' one because they are both women attracted to women? (The same applies if a gay man and a bisexual man were to couple up). I would not want to lose my identity as a pansexual woman during a relationship with another woman. I would not want nomenclature to describe my sexuality, when it is really trying to describe the gender of the relationship participants.

..............

I mentioned this above argument and my beau chipped in - apparently my definition of identity is faulty... two hours of argument about rhetoric, logic, etc. later and I am still being told that I'm wrong... who'd date a philosopher, eh?