Small Legal Words

On the morning of my brother's wedding, he knocked on the door of my childhood bedroom at my parents house. I hadn't slept well the night before and was trying to have a little rest before heading off to the hotel where my future sister-in-law would be getting ready for the wedding. He wanted to ask me to be in charge of something rather important and I was ready for the task. Whatever he needed me to do, right? My brother's wedding day-- I was ready for anything.

He asked me to be in charge of the marriage license, and I do have to say, I was flattered to be in charge of this task. It seemed pretty heady, so I asked to see the papers to make sure I could direct everyone correctly. There were three copies that needed to be filled out-- the most impressive was the first one with the gold seal of the county my brother lives in. When he left, I looked at the pages further. A marriage license. I'd never inspected one in such detail, and even though to most people, it might be just more mundane paperwork, to me it was an artifact of interest.

My partner joined me on the bed to look at the papers. I know we were both thinking the same thing. She said to me, "Maybe one day we'll get one." I sighed. She put her head on my shoulder and continued, "And then we'll have a big party."

Sometimes I dismiss all this malarky about gay marriage and I think, I don't need a license or state recognition to love Partner. I just do. I know that we're terribly in love with each other-- I know that we're lucky with the love we have each other. And does it matter that the State won't recognize it? It wouldn't make me any more or less in love or committed.

But when I think about Cricket, or any other "real life" situation, I know it matters horribly. We just closed on the new loan for the new house this past Friday. Luckily the title agent we work with was on top of things and realized that some of the wording was incorrect on our title work. We were listed as tenants in common, and she correctly identified that wasn't right and changed it for us: joint tenants in common with rights of survivorship. Hm. Small thing one might think, but for us, small legal words matter. She made sure the wording was changed-- but still, even the modified documents are comfortless. Everywhere on the paperwork it referred to us individually as separate and as "a single woman." And every time I saw it, it smacked untrue and insanely cheerless to me, not because being single is such, but because I am definitively not single.

Yesterday, as you might know, an appeals court in California overturned a lower court's opinion that the ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional. Alas. The arguments used by the group that brought the case are pretty disingenuous to me. Matthew Staver, who argued the case, said, “The marital union of a man and a woman uniquely fosters responsible procreation, contributes to the continuing well-being of men and women, to society, to children and to the state. Same-sex relationships by definition and nature cannot constitute marriage.”

Unpacking now: I wonder what responsible procreation is here? Is it procreation only when a couple are married? So if a couple has a child out of wedlock, and then proposes to get married, perhaps they should be denied as well, as the initial baby making was pretty damn irresponsible, eh? (Please, please, please read the irony in my tone there. I don't really believe that.) One might wonder what else constitutes responsible procreation: sex only in missionary style? Sex only to procreate and for that purpose only? Don't enjoy yourselves too much, folks, at times when you aren't at your peak of fertility because that's just damn irresponsible. Oh. And wait. There's that little word, "fertility"-- should we only be letting the fertile men marry fertile women? I'm skipping down a road now that Margaret Atwood may have already traversed in The Handmaid's Tale.

And just what about exclusively heterosexual marriage endemically creates continued well being for women, men, and children? In the words of a greater woman that I can dream of becoming, "Ain't I a woman?" I'm not sure that limiting marriage is contributing at all to my general well being. Certainly when I wake up at 2:00 am, wondering where we'll get the money to go see a lawyer about parental rights and guardianship and what a quagmire we're entering merely because we're two women who love each other and want to have a family is not contributing to my well being. The stomach acid I feel when I think of how some people want to deny my growing family basic rights is not good either.

Staver might feel that our relationship by definition can't be marriage, but I think our relationship by definition can't be anything but. "Any close or intimate association or union" "A blending or matching of different elements or components" Like two pieces of wood in a sturdy piece of furniture are married together, I know that's what we are. I know that a piece of paper won't make it more real for me, but the small legal words would mean something to many other people, including our Cricket.

Last Saturday, I stood at beautiful old table with the priest and my other Brother, N, and I felt the enormity of signing as a witness for my brother and new sister-in-law's marriage. I only hope that some day soon we'll get to have that party Partner said we'd have and they can return the favor and sign for us.

They can all sign for us.