My partner and I are now officially married under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We had a small ceremony in Newton on Saturday, and then spent the night in Cambridge while my parents took our son home with them. It was a nice time for just the two of us, and a chance to reflect on what has kept us together through all the ups and downs and twists of thirteen-some-odd years.
Does getting married make me feel any different? Not in terms of what I feel about my partner. (And we shall likely continue to say “partner” since we’ve come to know each other that way and are comfortable with the term.) We’ve already been legally bound in varying degrees by signing powers of attorney and then by getting a court order naming us both parents of our son. We’ll continue to celebrate our anniversary in the spring, though we’ll add a “Massaversary” celebration in November.
I feel, though, that I now have a trump card up my sleeve. I can play it whenever we get questioned about our relationship on everything from hospital-visitation rights to health-club memberships. “We’re married,” I can say, and cut through the clutter with a term of immediate power.
Traveling to any of the 44 states where same-sex marriage is prohibited by statute, constitution, or both instantly nullifies this power, however. Even in the five other states that don’t prohibit same-sex marriage, our marital status becomes downgraded to a civil union or domestic partnership (though it’s unclear to me whether jurisdictions that require DP’s to be resident and register would even recognize our marriage as such, if we were just traveling through).
A trump card is perhaps a simplistic analogy. I feel more like I do when I’m playing one of the complex strategy games my partner and I enjoy, the ones that come with 20 pages of rules: “You can play the knight card on the castle, but only if the castle isn’t inhabited by a wizard. If, however, there is no wand card next to the wizard, you can stay for one turn but cannot play a tower card. . . .”
“If we have a legal marriage in Massachusetts, and we’re traveling in New York, which prohibits same-sex marriage, but allows same-sex domestic partnerships in New York City. . . .”
Regardless of the rules, I love you, honey. If I had to, I’d marry you in every state in the union.
Congratulations!
Ditto the congrats!
And, to “If I had to, I’d marry you in every state in the union”: think of the Grand Tour that would be! A traveller’s dream.
Congratulations on getting legally hitched. I like your term “Massaversary” – Amy + I have ours in March, and our anniversary in July. :)
A blogger in the SF area IS planning on going to every place where she and her sweetie can legally be married. Google “yarn-a-go-go” and look for the wedding links on the right side of the page. So far they’ve gone to Vancouver, and have mentioned Spain as their next stop. Pretty sweet.
Congratulations! I also like the term Massaversary – my partner and I celebrated our four year anniversary this past Friday, but our “Massaversary” isn’t until May.
One heads up, since you mentioned it: I know that in Connecticut, at least, the marriage is null; you’d have to register as domestic partners there, since they refuse to recognize gay “marriage” from Massachusetts. Not sure about other states, though.
Pingback: Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms » Blog Archive » Check the Box