Getting married

               My wife and youngest daughter say I’m tenderhearted. I think it’s a gentle way to say I take things too seriously, I take them hard. As much as I’d like to say I’m a tough cookie, they may be right.

               Prop 8, for example. When it won, I literally felt nauseous. It hit me hard. I tried to imagine voters going into the booth and voting for Obama, then going a little further down the page and voting to rescind my civil rights. I could no longer believe it was just some crazy Republicans with a knee jerk, anti-democracy, fundamentalist viewpoint. It was people I generally agreed with who thought that it was o.k. for some Americans to have different rights than others. I couldn’t make sense of it. I am not confused by the fact that people don’t agree with me, that they might think it’s morally wrong to marry a same-sex partner. I can live with that. But legally? I guess I’m still an idealist when it comes to other people’s right to think differently than I do. Honestly, there are lots of straight marriages I don’t approve of, but I figure it’s up to them!

               And then I began to wonder why it was that my daughter’s school, a school for the arts, attended by so many gay youth and children of gay parents, was saying NOTHING about Prop 8. I knew other schools in our area were helping their students to deal with the emotions they were having; I knew they were helping smooth out the differences between their students, and even using it as an opportunity for some education. This school? Deafening silence.

               I was at the school volunteering one day, and I asked someone I trusted there, “what’s with you guys not saying anything about Prop 8?” I suggested that the silence put my child and the gay kids in the position of not feeling safe and supported. He said, “yes, but we really can’t say anything because there are lots of religious people at the school who might leave if we do.” I asked him, “You’re not concerned that I’m going to leave!?” That hadn’t crossed his mind.     

               So it was a blow. And I find I still haven’t fully recovered. When the trial is on the news I can hardly listen- I turn it off. I fear the day when the verdict comes, because I just don’t know how I will handle another disappointment. I find it deeply hard to accept that there are so many people I encounter every day that don’t want me to be married to the person I love. When I volunteer at the school, when I come to performances, when I give my daughter’s friends rides, no one says they disapprove of me. But I must always wonder… is it you?

               On the other hand, being who I am, I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with hatred and disappointment. Anita Bryant, the murder of Harvey Milk, the short sentence of the person who killed him, AIDS and all the anti-gay feeling that came out as a result… I could go on and on. And most of the time I just keep loving my wife, driving my daughter to endless soccer games, theater classes, friends’ houses, making dinner, helping to plan weddings and bridal showers, having Christmas with my family- living a pretty darn conservative life. I don’t even think about all the people who hate me. Until something happens. I know how to comfort myself, and how to talk to a friend, and how to stay true to what I believe. But I wonder about the people who really are vulnerable. The ones who kill themselves, or drink to mask their sorrows, or don’t feel their own beauty enough to take care of themselves. The ones whose families reject them and refuse to have anything to do with them. How does it affect a person to be seen not as a human being, but as a moral outcast?

               We’re the last ones left it’s ok to hate. I heard one Prop 8 supporter on the news say that it’s “not personal.” But it is nothing but personal to me. I am a therapist, working every day with people for whom it is personal. And yes, it does affect our relationships, our self esteem, our capacity to feel truly equal. Yes, it does affect our children, who on some level feel the pressure to represent us well. It does affect society by sending the message that it’s alright to insult, disregard and disenfranchise us.

               There’s been only one up side for me. I’ve gotten married a whole bunch more than other people, and I really like it! (Just to claarify, all these weddings were to the same person) First, we had a wedding without the law. My dad, the minister, officiated and both of our families attended. My wife’s sisters thought it was the most beautiful wedding they’d ever been to, one of them remarking, “of course- two women planned it!” It was a day of pure joy, and that continued into a weeklong honeymoon in, drum roll, Hawaii.

               5 years later, Canada legalized marriage for same sex couples, and we drove up there with our dogs and got legal. My wife didn’t want anyone else to come, because she said “the first wedding was the real one- with God.” It seemed like a bit of a lark, the Canada thing, just a cool thing to do because we could, but it ended up having a tremendous impact on us. People up there would ask us what we were doing in Vancouver, and we’d say, “we’re here to get married”. “CONGRATULATIONS!” they’d say, truly sincere and happy for us. We realized that marriage places your relationship in a societal context; having the option to do that makes you a part of things. To be barred from it is bigger than it seems. When we married without the law, it changed how our relationship was held by our families, but not this broader thing. Marriage is a legal institution because families are a unit that supports the society- I hadn’t realized that it mattered so much to be included in it.

               Then in 1998, during the period when gay marriage was legal in our state, we renewed our vows, again with my dad officiating. He died not long after that, and I treasure that memory of his support and love. What a blast to acknowledge our legality, though it would soon be lost for all those who weren’t married before Prop 8 won. We wanted to get married legally again, to honor California’s new legal right, but when we asked an attorney, she said it would be bigamy, even if it was the same person. Is that funny, or what?

               I guess I could live with not having the right to legally marry if no one has it. If it’s a religious issue, then it doesn’t belong in a government sanctioned institution. If it’s civil, we all need to have the right to it. Any straight people out there willing to give up the right to marry? I’ll wait to hear from you!