How Would You Like Your Marriage Voided?

I know firsthand what a feeling it was to go from being “partnered’ to being married; it’s really a subtle difference, maybe a change in speech — This is my husband versus This is my partner — but it felt huge.

Now, imagine that you’ve married your partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, significant other, and you’re feeling that joy, that sense of newness, that sense of equality, only to have the rug yanked out from under when a Circuit Court decides that marriages bans against the gays are just fine.

That’s what happened when the 6th Circuit Court recently ruled that marriage bans are legal and, somehow, just. And since that ruling the state of Michigan is trying to declare that the 300 same-sex couples who received licenses last March, and were subsequently legally married in the state, are now no longer husband-and-husband or wife-and-wife.

How’s that for equality?

The weddings were performed by county clerks March 22, a day after U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman struck down Michigan's same-sex marriage ban; that same day the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued a stay on those marriages, but it came after those 300 couples had legally completed the steps to be married.

Now, Michigan Governor, and ISBL Asshat winner, Rick Snyder would like those marriages voided since the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage, along with bans in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

You can’t get married; you can get married; now your marriage is void. It never existed. You don’t exist as a married couple. Ain’t that America?

Lawyers for the governor, and for the state of Michigan, are saying that "from a legal standpoint, because the marriages rested solely on the district court's erroneous decision, which has now been reversed, it is as if the marriages never existed.”

I mean, bad enough that we are being treated like second-class citizens; bad enough that we are expected to do as everyone else in this country is supposed to do, work, pay taxes, be responsible citizens, vote, and yet we do not have the same rights as those other citizens; bad enough. But to allow us the opportunity to get married when the law is changed, and then to change it back and sue to have our marriages declared void?

That is not America; that cannot happen. These cases need to go before the Supreme Court and have marriage equality declared the law of land everywhere in this country.

Case closed.

Appeals ruling voids300 gay marriages, Michigan argues

Wedding Week Repost: Equal Rights Aren't Special Rights

This first appeared on ISBL back in December 2008, and it reinfoirced the belief I had then, and the belief I have now, especially given that I am getting married this week, that, while some folks were all gung ho for Civil Unions, they were "less than."

Equal Rights Aren't Special Rights

This is a good day for gay marriage. Another step in the right direction, toward equality. 

After allowing civil unions, the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission has come out with a report that says Civil Unions don't work, that the only fair, equitable solution, is for New Jersey to join Massachusetts and Connecticut, in allowing gay men and women the right to marry. 

Marry. Say it with me. Marry! 

Because, as they say, it is still 'separate but equal,' this civil union business. It creates problems for gay couples, and gay couples with children regarding medical care and so on. 

A few years back, when we were still living in Miami, Carlos had appendicitis, and we had to rush him to the Mount Sinai on Miami Beach for surgery. Of course, he's in absolute pain and we have to admit him and fill out paper work and all that rot, but I found something interesting. 

They were asking him who to notify, in case of emergency. He pointed to me; the nurse asked if I was his brother, or another family member. I thought I knew where this was going and I tried to jump in before Carlos answered, but I was too late. 

He's my significant other, Carlos said. 

The nurse gave us a look, stared at the computer screen for a moment, and then smiled. I get to use the new form, she said. We have a category now for same-sex couples, to put down the contact person as a significant other, or spouse or partner. She told us they hadn't been able to do so in years past and it created difficulty for gay couples. 

Now, I could make decisions for Carlos if necessary. I could stay in the room with Carlos while he was hospitalized. i was allowed to wait in the Family Waiting Room when he had surgery and the doctor came out after the procedure to tell me Carlos was fine. 

I would have hated to be at Mount Sinai in 'years past' and been denied visitation because I wasn't family, been denied information because I wasn't family, denied being treated equally because I wasn't family. 

Of course, now we're in South Carolina and I don't know if that same generosity of spirit, that understanding of what makes a family, what makes a couple, exists here. But New Jersey is showing us that it can, and it should. 

I don't want to be treated differently than anyone else, I want to be treated the same.