an unhappily unmarried woman weighs in on nj marriage bill
January 8th, 2010
This picture was taken of me and my partner Eileen in 1981. I know we look fabulous, but don’t you dare say it out loud. You can think it in your head that we look so young but I’d just prefer not to spread it around. As an aside I should point out that while I am short, I am not as short as I look here. I was seated.
We met a month before my niece Maura was born. She just turned 28 and she just got engaged. We are thrilled for her (actually she is thrilled for herself which is even nicer).
I won’t be getting married anytime soon. At least not in New Jersey. Yesterday the New Jersey State Senate failed to pass a marriage equality bill. So Eileen and I will just have to continue shacking up.
We’ll just have to continue going to great lengths to protect our relationship with each other and with our kids as best we can. We’ll just have to continue keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t encounter a homophobic ambulance driver, employer, airline security official – the list goes on. Because without all the rights and protections that come with a marriage license, we live at risk. Our kids are not as well protected as they SHOULD be.
Do I sound bitter? Not as bitter as Eileen. She has threatened on more than one occasion to refuse to pay taxes. I would really miss her if she did time. And she’d be a legal stranger and that would make visitation problematic I bet.
I have so much to say on this topic. I want to talk about how many of my kids’ friends marriages went down in flames these last 20 years. I want to talk about the day I officiated my nephew’s wedding and what that felt like. I want to talk about the day my daughter Kit was flabbergasted to learn that gay people could be single (she’d only met gay couples). She said (age seven), “Oh, I thought you had to be married if you were gay.”
I have a lot to talk about. But I should take it one post at a time. So here’s one for you to read – just published on The Newark Star Ledger’s site: New Jersey Marriage Bill: An Unhappily Unmarried Mom Weighs In.