Waiting and Wondering and Waiting Some More

May 15, 2009

Today marks the one year anniversary of when marriage equality came to California and a year later D and I and tens of thousands of other GLBTQ Californians and those who stand with us in justice are waking up every morning wondering if this will be the week when the decision of the California Supreme Court will come down that will determine whether marriage equality will be upheld or overturned.

For the 18,000 couples who were legally married last summer we not only wait to hear whether Prop 8 will be upheld or overturned but whether our marriages will continue to stand or will be subjected to state-enforced divorce, a term that makes me cringe every time I hear it. I In 2004 when the City of San Francisco passed a resolution in favor of marriage equality, gay and lesbian couples were allowed to marry and even though we understood the legal status of those marriages was uncertain at best we still went ahead and marched down to city hall. Several months those marriages were regretfully but expectantly ruled invalid.

But this time is not the same. Those 18,000 gay and lesbian couples were legally married and because a legal marriage can only be dissolved through divorce, the state will have to come in and force divorce or annulment (a word no more gentle) upon us. It’s heart-wrenching to even think about because what we’re talking about is more than a political issue. It’s more than about crossing the blurry line between separation of church and state. What this is really about are couples who not for a political agenda but for love went to city hall, filled out paper work, paid the fees, and stood in line to get their marriage license. It’s about couples who registered at Crate and Barrel, who scrimped and saved for their dream honeymoons and ordered flowers and tasted sugar-loaded trays of wedding cake. It’s about couples who wrote and re-wrote and tweaked their wedding vows and laid awake all night in anticipation of their wedding day, a day they never thought would come to them. It’s about couples who were married in parks and churches and on courthouse steps by clergy and clerks empowered with the authority of the state. It’s about couples whose young children stood beside them as they exchanged their vows and aging parents who hugged their gay son or lesbian daughter like any mother and father of any bride or groom would do. It’s about couples who danced the first dance at their reception, who laughed with joy on the happiest day of their lives and who looked eagerly ahead to their future together. It’s about couples who combined their resources, purchased and furnished homes, adopted each other’s children, and filed as spouses on last year’s state tax forms.

And it’s about couples who are weary of having their relationship relegated to the status of joint owners, domestic partners, or special friends. It’s about couples who are tired of remembering to include a stack of legal documents in their luggage every time they board a plane for another state or country where they might not be recognized as each others spouse in the case of a health emergency. It’s about couples who’ve spent far too much money jumping through legal hoops to protect each other financially at the time of their death and about couples who don’t have the money to insure such protections for themselves. It’s about couples who live with the fear of being separated and their family torn apart when the non-US citizen spouse is deported when their work visa runs out or the HIV-positive spouse who leaves the country for a family funeral and is prohibited from re-entering at customs. It’s about couples where one or both are serving our country in the military and are burdened down by the added stress of being found out and removed from service. It’s about young children who are told one of their mommies isn’t really their mommy and their family isn’t a real family. It’s about young children who never hear about families like theirs at school because families of other configurations refuse to allow theirs to be represented.

I’m crafting an emotional argument here. I realize that. Today’s not the day I’m in the mood to offer counterpoints to the oppositional arguments based on religion or politics. Another day but not today. Today this is about human lives and love. It’s about D and I and 17,999 other couples along with every other GLBTQ man and woman in California and their children and families. It’s about people. It’s about human dignity and respect. It’s about the true values of this nation; of liberty and justice for all and legal protection under the law for every man, woman, and child. It’s about treating our neighbor as we want to be treated and cherishing every person as a child of God and recognizing that the love of the human heart flows from the heart of God.

D and I have our marriage license from 2004 framed and mounted on a wall in our home and though it has been declared invalid we’ve never been able to bear the idea of taking it down. Our legal marriage license from 2008 is tucked away in a manila folder in the top drawer of a file cabinet. We want to frame it and display it on our wall but we’re waiting until we can stop living with the threat of state-enforced divorce tangling over it and instead celebrate another step in our lives toward full equality.

No matter what happens I’m committed to stay engaged in the work of justice. No matter what happens in the next few weeks here in California I know marriage equality is inevitable and that in my lifetime my marriage will be recognized, not only in Calfornia but at the federal level. If I have to live to be 113 years old to check the “married” box on my IRS form then I’m sticking around for that day to come. I’m just that stubborn. Until then I’ll continue to leave it to my tax accountant to fill out the marital status on my tax returns since no pen held in these two hands will ever deny my relationship with a check mark. It’s a principle thing. I’m just that stubborn.

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Posted in Marriage, News and Events