Why it matters: together for 64 years

From NY Magazine:  

After 64 Years Together, Louis Halsey and John Spofford Morgan Finally Got Hitched....being gay was a great equalizer then. And being married is a great equalizer now. “People say, ‘So if you’re married, where’s the certificate?’ ” Lou explains. “Now we have it.” The pair ignored domestic partnership when it came along (“A halfway step,” says John), and since they had already invested in the complicated legal work-arounds—trusts, powers of attorney—needed to protect one another, they didn’t see the point of claiming marriage rights in, say, Iowa. But when the law passed here in June, they knew they would take the step. “Just to see it in black and white,” says Lou. For John, “it was more like finishing something.” 

The small ceremony, with a minister and three witnesses, was held in their Village apartment on November 11, a date they chose because they have for years noticed the time 11:11 on the clock by the bed. They did not exchange rings and got no gifts, “except bourbon!” Lou says. “But he”—he waves at John—“started to cry.” 

“Did I?” John wonders.

From NY Magazine

 And just how, pray tell, is the marriage of these old men together for 64 years going to hurt ANYONE else?

Stories: Michael and Xavier

From Equality CA and the Jordan/ Rustin Coalition

Stories: Paul and Kevin

From the LA Times:

Paul Waters and Kevin Voecks will celebrate their first wedding anniversary Wednesday. Marriage has added 'a deeper dimension' to their 16-year relationship, they say.

Two days after the wedding ....a friend left a message on their answering machine.

Fighting back tears, Jim Hacket exalted in how their wedding was "so normal, something that happens every day in the United States. . . . That was the way it was supposed to be, a wedding that was . . . just a wedding."

Read the whole thing!

ElsieElsie's story

Writing at DailyKos, ElsieElsie says,

I cannot provide my husband health insurance if he loses his job. His medication is very expensive, and without it, he faces a debilitating disease. We can't afford it without his income or his insurance.

Conversely, he CAN provide me health insurance if I lose my job, but, because the federal government does not recognize our marriage, I must pay taxes on the thousands of dollars his company provides me in benefits in that case -- not a trivial amount of money.

This is but one of millions of examples why, though our civil rights aren't important to you, they are for millions of people and their families intimately connected with the issues [some] deem so much more urgent.

Without full equality, should politicians resolve these burning issues, we get left behind.

Do you have a story about being a gay married Californian? Put it in the comments and I will post it.

IT's story, 2: Reflections on being married

When we got married in October 2008, it caused us to reflect on why it was so important, and why it felt so different. Of course, it has not changed what we mean to each other. I have loved my beloved partner-spouse for many years with every part of my being, nothing different there.

But what HAS changed is something of our view of our relationship. We were rather surprised to find that we both felt this change.

First, of course, there is the weight of the State. (This became particularly apparent with some minor issues regarding the proper filing of the license). We are legally tied together with the ponderous ropes of officialdom. Yes, that is a difference; not that we ever took our relationship casually, but it is something much more weighty than an informal agreement between two women--not just a private leap over a broomstick, but real in every official sense with its rights and also its responsibilities. The visit in advance to apply for the license...the interview....the submission. A lot different than a $10 notarized Domestic Partner form, which by comparison seems more like a dog license. (If it is the same thing, legally speaking, why is it treated so differently?)

Second, there is the amazing feature of standing before family and friends and making our vows in public. That was stunning, really, truly stunning. We were both blown away by the love and focus of those around us, reaching their hands to us, robustly and vocally offering their support of us as a couple. What an amazing feeling!

Third, there is the sense of belonging to the tapestry of community. As a lesbian couple, we have often felt unwanted and on the outside, but now we are undeniably part of the whole. We now are a new thread in this fabric, another married couple contributing to its strength and texture.

Finally, we were struck by how, well, very normal this all was as an event. It was a pretty typical wedding, with tears of joy and laughter, food, wine and celebration. Nothing made this a "gay" wedding. It was simply a wedding, of two people who love each other completely, gathered to unite in a shared life together.

Yes, it matters. It makes a huge difference.

Originally posted at Friends of Jake

The Day of Decision is Tuesday, May 26th. BE THERE!

Commonmass's story

Commonmass writes,
My Married Californian Friends have been visiting here in Massachusetts for a week. They were among those married in California prior to prop 8. Over dinner last night we talked about the future of the legality of their marriage. They are understandably concerned that there is a very real possibility that the court ruling could dissolve their union. They have been together for over 10 years.

What is interesting is that while here in New England they took a side trip to Montreal. I pointed out to them that as they drove from Massachusetts through Vermont to Quebec their marriage was valid and recognized everywhere they traveled. It was clearly liberating for them to realize this.

I can't get out to California to demonstrate, but many of us here in New England are behind our West Coast comrades. Coming face to face with prop 8 in the persons of my good friends this last week has made me count my blessings--and has re-energized my commitment to marriage equality for all.

Do you have a story about being a gay married Californian? Put it in the comments and I will post it.

Bob and Kenneth: why it matters (updated)

This diary was posted at DailyKos. You should read the whole thing!

Tonight, surrounded by his family, my best friend Kenneth took his last assisted breaths in a hospital known for its “compassion and care” in the area. His family held his hands and whispered their loving goodbyes while the life slipped from his body and he went to his rest. A sudden heart attack claimed him.

But someone was conspicuously absent…

In the parking lot, Bob, his partner of 26 years, said goodbye to a photograph....

The hospital, at the behest of Kenneth’s family, had banned Bob from Kenneth’s room, or seeing him in the hospital at all. 26 years treated as though they were mere passing acquaintances or work colleagues. Simply because Kenneth’s family could never accept their son’s orientation...

Tonight, a nurse sympathetic to Bob’s situation and in violation of the hospital policies, came to the car window and delivered the news to Bob that Kenneth was gone. And Bob said his goodbyes and wishes of love and peace to a picture.... Held to his chest as though he were holding his loved one in tears. Because that was all he had.

Go read the whole thing. This is the result of denying two people who love each other, the rights of marriage, to love honor and cherish each other, until the end.

And even people in states with "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" have numerous stories like this. For example, there's a case in Miami where a hospital denied a gay woman access even though she had the necessary documents. And in the State of Hate, Virginia, those documents are specifically void.

Update: Today, the NY Times had a piece on partners being denied access to their loved one, even though in these two cases

the couples had prepared for a medical emergency, creating living wills, advanced directives and power-of-attorney documents.

Their legal documents were IGNORED. Straight people don't have to carry a legal file full of notarized documents. But we do. And even then they are meaningless. And that's WRONG.

Marriage matters.

Killer of Sacred Cows' story

Killer of Sacred Cows writes,

As I start writing this diary, it's 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday, June 17th. I've been legally married for seven hours.

It hasn't quite sunk in yet.

I'm a man who has a husband. Legally. Under the law. Recognized by the state.

Equal.

It is impossible to describe what finding out you're equal is like.

Was it the moment when we filled out the license application and got a license, instead of a "sorry, you can't get married because it's against the law for two men to marry each other"?

Was it when we stood before our pastor on the courthouse steps and said "take this ring as a seal on the covenant I make with you today," instead of sitting and watching our straight friends as they said those words and received a new status in return?

Was it when we turned in the completed license and they didn't shred it?

Perhaps it'll hit me when our copy of the marriage certificate arrives. One thing I know for sure, it will hold pride of place on the wall, in a frame, forever.

There were no protesters. We got two or three people walking by giving us dirty looks. Nobody showed up with signs or tambourines or gospel choirs to sing us into shame. It was a party from start to finish.

There weren't many people there throughout the day, but my Unitarian church group gave flowers and wedding cake to each couple married in the morning. There were two before I had to leave to go make my own preparations, and then me and my husband in the afternoon. Apparently it was a quite slow day for marriages outside the courthouse. It looks like many people in my area simply came in to get their licenses.

I almost cried when we said our vows.

And from three days later:

Fri Jun 20, 2008

So, I've been legally married to my man for three days now. At least, in about two hours, it'll be three days.

Everything is different now. It's better. Two nights ago, we were kicking back and talking, and one of us (I forget who) said something like: "Being married makes everything different. It's more real. It's serious. Before, it felt like we were just two teenagers playing house. It doesn't feel like that anymore."

Before marriage, we'd say 'husband' with this sort of wistful 'yeah, that'll happen... not' feel to it. We attended weddings with a bittersweet feeling - happy for our straight friends, but ripped up inside that we couldn't have that too. There was always this thread of "this is temporary" running through our lives, simply because our promises to each other weren't taken seriously by most people - including, in some cases, members of our families. We've been waiting for at least four years to get married - we actually decided we would after the 2004 weddings in San Francisco - and sometimes it just seemed like it would never happen, like our whole relationship was a joke because the state wouldn't acknowledge us as equal to other married people. (And don't get me started on domestic partnership. It's a second-class status.)

That feeling of "this is temporary," of "this isn't really serious" - that feeling is gone now. It's been replaced by a feeling of seriousness, of permanence, of validity.

I participated in a wedding of two straight friends about two weeks ago as the best man. Because I knew that he and I could get married now, the feeling of bittersweet ouch was almost nonexistent that day. It was replaced with a feeling of anticipation - of "we will have this soon, too."

And on our wedding day, when about ten or twelve people from our church and a few of our friends and our Unitarian pastor stood around us in a rough circle on the courthouse steps and said, repeatedly, "bless this marriage," I almost fell apart and cried. We wanted minimal ceremony with maximum meaning, and that's exactly what we ended up with.

Every time I look at my wedding ring, I hear him saying his vows to me. And I well up. I can't help it.

Being married has meaning. It has weight. It's almost a tangible thing, this connection he and I have made. It's something we're aware of all the time now. It's powerful.

And your support and help and generosity - that helped make this happen.

Thank you.

Do you have a story to tell? Please put it in the comments and I will post it!

Cooper888's story

Cooper888 writes:
My better half (husband) and I met in SF over eleven years ago and tied the knot in August 2008. Its the easiest relationship either of us has ever been in. We are probably the most boring couple we know, our standing joke is that when we have a fight its usually about trying to do something for the other before they can get to it (dishes, laundry, etc). We weren't thinking of marriage but when the SC originally allowed the marriages to start we thought 'we can... so lets!'. When it looked like Prop H8 would pass we thought oh well, its just not time for this yet and it doesn't really matter. Well a funny thing happened Wednesday November 5th... we woke up and boy DID IT MATTER. We both felt kicked in the gut. I spent the next couple weeks in a severe funk. If the SC lets H8 stand and lets the marriages that happened stand it will be a very strange limbo indeed. Thank you for putting together the blog site. Feel free to share our story.

In the event the court rules as expected and we are put into limbo, I would love to see a social networking site especially for the 18000 couples. NING.com is a cool site for that if anyone has an inclination for that kind of thing - hint hint. ;)

Do YOU have a story? put it in the comments and I'll post it for you!

Ruben and Hector

Another video, of real people leading real lives. More stories. Don't forget to send yours!

Pico's story

Pico writes:
My better half and I both come from very conservative areas of the country, and we'd relocated to California for work. We got engaged back when we were living in Michigan, with no expectations that it'd be legal to follow through anytime soon. When California gave us the opportunity - and when the Prop 8 battle was looming overhead, we got on the phone with the parents and said, "Can you get a plane ticket next month? We're getting married." And so we did.

Sorta sucked in that we couldn't have friends there, but at the same time it felt great to follow through with something we'd long planned on doing.

Funny story: the judge who presided over the ceremony forgot the last part of the text. As she was wrapping up, she said "I now pronounce you..." and then froze in horror... shuffled through her papers, looked up and said, "Married!"


Do YOU have a story? put it in the comments and I'll post it for you!

DMiller's story

DMiller writes,
... I married my wife yesterday. I was a little too wrapped up in the event to write and post a diary about it on the day that I did it.

We "eloped." In other words, all our friends had been pressuring us to have a big wedding and instead we took our son out of school, went to the county courthouse and got married. Just the three of us. We expect we'll have a big party afterwards and invite the swim team and the neighborhood and the rest of our friends, but this was really nice just to have our little family for this ceremony.

To provide a little background, I met my wife in my sophomore year of college. I was 19. She was 21 and a senior. We dated for a couple of weeks and our roommates found out (we lived in the dorms) and threw us out. Therefore, we became roommates. It was a little traumatic, but it worked fine for us and the rest is history. That was 27 years ago last March.

You'd think that after twenty-seven years, a civil union in Vermont and a domestic partnership in California, not to mention untold contractual and legal procedings, (all attempting to provide one another the most legal protection we could) getting an actual honest to god California wedding license and wedding certificate really wouldn't make that much of a difference.

It really did make a difference, we didn't think it would beforehand, because we'd felt married for years and years, but the ceremony was amazingly meaningful to us.

The weight of the legal proceedings made a difference. Hearing the vows and saying the vows made a difference. There's something about the traditional wedding vows in our culture that does make a difference and we both felt it.

We wrote our own vows in our civil union ceremony and they meant a lot to both of us. We went with the state's ceremony in for our marriage at courthouse and, with certain tweaks, it was a traditional marriage ceremony .... "In sickness and in health till death do you part."

Our 13 year old son wept. We had no idea that it would affect him so much. Later he explained that his friends' parents are all getting divorced. It meant a lot that we still loved one another enough to want to get married after all these years.

It's made a difference to our friends and family. We've been flooded with telephone calls and emails congratulating us on our marriage. Our house looks like a florist shop. Our neighbors have stopped by to make sure that everything is okay because of the regular flower deliveries and are delighted by the news. They've all asked for invitations to the reception, whenever it happens.

Our family and friends are a little annoyed that we didn't invite them to our wedding, but we're not really sorry and they'll understand once they think about it. Our son never would have been comfortable enough to cry if he'd had an audience and this clearly meant so much to him.

My wife (gotta get used to saying that instead of partner) worries that the fundies will take away our marriage certificate somehow and I try to reassure her that the only way she's gonna get rid of me now is to divorce me.

It's hard for people to understand loving and living with someone and having your relationship and your family always subject to question and/or ridicule. Being able to get married, legally, helps overcome that. Now we have legal standing for our relationship, just like everyone else.

It makes a difference.

This was posted at DMIller's Daily Kos Diary last fall. Go there to see the congratulations!

Do YOU have a story? put it in the comments and I'll post it for you!

IT's story

In October 2008, my Beloved Partner (BP) and I were married. I can honestly say it was the most joyful day of my 46 years. Unfortunately, November 4th came far too soon, and that was my saddest.

BP and I have been together for many years. Truthfully, she is the light of my life. We're pretty typical of any other married couple. Our day to day is about work (I am a college professor, BP a senior administrator) and the regular stuff of real life, like cleaning the house, or working on the garden, rather than about politics or advocacy. We live a boring suburban life in a nice neighborhood. We like to go to the theatre and go hiking. We don't look any different from any other vaguely-earth-mothery professional women of middle years. We "pass". But now we find ourselves thrust into an advocacy role.

Like many in our position, BP was married previously. She has two children, and she and her Ex divorced when she came out. Divorce is always painful, but everyone came through it in the end, and BP is still extremely close to Ex who is a fine man. The kids, now in their late teens, handled it all remarkably gracefully. Indeed, when she was still in school, the oldest used our relationship as a test of sorts. "If people have a problem that my mom is gay," she explained, "they aren't really my kind of people." The children have been the center of our lives; I'm not a typical step-parent, because both their mom and dad are both present and very involved. In fact, it would be possible for an outsider interacting with our family at the PTA or a soccer game not to realize that BP and Ex are divorced.

Before BP, I was all about the career and was a very lonely person. When BP came into my life, it's as though I suddenly could see in color, instead of shades of grey. My parents and family have all been incredibly supportive of my middle-aged coming out and have welcomed BP with open arms.

Our wedding brought everyone together and the kids and Ex as well as my siblings were all active participants. ( I'll write more about our wedding in another post). The arguments against our marriage are so frusturating, and based entirely on a mistaken idea of who we are and what it means to us.

First, of course, we have kids too! Marriage helps protect BP and the kids if something were to happen to me, or vice versa. The absence of same-sex marriage is not going to change the fact that many gay people are raising families, and doing a very good job of it.

Additionally, we're also frustrated by the religion question. BP, who is Roman Catholic, did not ask, and did not expect, her church to marry us. But she had hoped for at least a truce. Instead, the vitriol from some of the Catholics and the hurtful rejection of her secular, civil rights as a gay person has sent her away from her childhood church. But she has found an explicit welcome at the Episcopal church (which I've described elsewhere), where we as a lesbian married couple are actually wanted and affirmed. We'll explore more of the religion questions on this blog later.

Meanwhile, I've written a lot more about our experiences on the group blog Friends of Jake. Additionally I will re-post some of my previous posts from Friends on this blog as we go along.

Do you have a story to tell, about what it means to be gay and married? Let me know in the comments, and I will turn it into a post.

Frances and Cynthia

Great new ad. About time that actual, you know, married gay people were featured in the ads about gay marriage!