Marriage equality is a hustler's feeding frenzy of gold-diggers.

Hear, O seeker of paradox, the words of John Waters, the iconoclast and provocateur, who declared with sharp tongue and playful irony: “Marriage equality is a hustler's feeding frenzy of gold-diggers. I campaigned for marriage equality in Maryland because I believe we should have the right to it, but I personally don't want to get married. I don't want to imitate the traditions of heterosexual people. I hate weddings: they make me uneasy.” In this utterance is both defiance and wisdom, humor and protest, the voice of one who has always questioned conformity—even in the moment of triumph for freedom.

Waters begins with exaggeration, calling marriage equality a hustler’s feeding frenzy. His words drip with satire, mocking the way some view marriage as a mere financial or social transaction, a stage for wealth, ambition, or status. By framing it thus, he strips marriage of its idealized romance and shows it also as institution, as business, as tradition laden with expectations. Yet beneath the jest lies a truth: even noble victories like marriage equality can be commodified, consumed, and made spectacle in a world where appearances often outweigh meaning.

Yet the heart of his statement lies in the paradox: Waters fought for the right though he rejects the practice. Here is the mark of a true believer in liberty. He does not wish marriage for himself, but he demands that others be free to choose it. In this, he mirrors the spirit of the abolitionists who defended freedom for the enslaved though they themselves were never bound, or the suffragists who fought for women’s votes though they sometimes had no interest in politics. Waters recognizes that justice is not about one’s own desire but about defending the right of others to decide their path.

He goes further, saying, “I don’t want to imitate the traditions of heterosexual people.” Here he unveils a deeper resistance: that even in gaining equality, there is danger in assimilation, in being forced into the same molds that oppressed voices for so long. For Waters, the beauty of queerness lies in difference, in creativity, in breaking traditions rather than conforming to them. He fears that to embrace weddings and their rituals uncritically is to surrender uniqueness, to become trapped in the very forms that once excluded.

History offers us an echo of this concern. When early Christians in Rome gained freedom after centuries of persecution, they began to imitate the pomp and structure of the empire that once despised them. In gaining legitimacy, they risked losing their radical spirit. So too Waters warns: in winning marriage equality, let not the queer spirit lose its daring difference, its power to unsettle and transform. For equality should not mean sameness, but the freedom to be distinct without penalty.

The unease he feels at weddings is not only personal taste but symbolic discomfort. Weddings, with their spectacle, their scripts, their expectations, can often become hollow performances, suffocating individuality. Waters, whose art is rebellion against the ordinary, recoils at these ceremonies, sensing in them a danger to authenticity. Yet in his rejection, he also affirms: let each person honor love in their own way, whether through vows, through silence, through art, or through lifelong partnership unbound by tradition.

O children of tomorrow, learn the lesson here: fight for the rights of all, even if you yourself will not claim them. Celebrate the opening of doors, even if you do not walk through them. But when freedom is won, do not be compelled to mimic the ways of others; instead, use your liberty to live in truth. Equality is not the loss of difference, but the recognition of dignity in every form of life.

What then must you do? Defend the rights of others with courage, even if your path diverges from theirs. Question traditions before embracing them, and ensure that what you practice is born of authenticity, not conformity. And above all, remember that justice is not about forcing everyone into one mold, but about honoring the right of each soul to choose its own. In this way, Waters’s paradoxical words endure: equality means freedom—for some to wed, for others to refuse, and for all to live without fear.