The Right to Wed

Moira

Her hand rests on my brow, fingers en-
twined and slipping through my hair. I
feel soothed like a girl on a trusted lap. It
is an old memory she stirs in me as we lie
close. Her chest rises and falls next to
me, the life beating warmth. I love her.
We talk of the gold bands we wear.

Every morning my littlest son walks to
the one store in town and returns with the
paper for us. As I pour the tea we notice
Victorian wedding bands advertised.
They remind me of our wedding. We
can’t make it legal she tells me, but I
don’t understand why. It is a remarkable
fact to me, that in this day, on the crest of
the space age and glasnost, puritan think-
ing persists to such a degree that two peo-
ple of the same sex cannot make their
bond legal. This smaller issue en-
compasses a much larger one, one of dis-
crimination at the very core, that of ac-
knowledging lesbians and gays and
allowing them basic rights.

I do not agree that the gender of the per-
son I love is more important than who
that person is, even though the law books
state it. I have read about relationships
between women that have spanned their
adult lives, that have been productive and
loving, yet the romantic nature had to be
hidden. I question why it is okay for peo-
ple of the opposite sex to marry and di-
vorce as frequently as they please, some-
how their unions are considered
“blessed,” even in a Las Vegas chapel.
These dichotomies strike me the wrong
way. I know that making something legal
doesn’t make it stronger, and it doesn’t
make it last.

But it is in the denial of my rights that I
am angered. I am angry that marriage is
not an option for us. What is it in our lim-
ited thinking that lets this persist? I
would like to see more people who value
their long-terrn relationships question the
state’s denial of their legal right to marry.

I know they are there, out there, some
speaking, some quietly living their lives.
For some, such as myself, it hasn’t need-
ed to be an issue till now, till the commit-
ment of relationship and family became
real. Maybe the time has come for these
basic rights, the right to love, to marry,
and be recognized by our community.

Lesbians and gays are no less committed
to their relationships, their families, their
communities, than anyone else. How-
ever, because of the impossibility of the
legal bond, many people view their re-
lationships as not quite real. Again it
comes back to self—acceptance: we need
to believe in ourselves, that our mar-
riages are valid, and project that image
out.

It is difficult because, like so many of the
coming out issues, being married in a
same sex relationship is generally not ac-
cepted. There are many people who
would laugh at such a marriage, and oth-
ers who would react in a violent way.
Certainly the preparations and sharing
that goes on in families or the workplace
are different. We did not have the hat
passed around at work for us because of
the negative consequences that our open-
ness would cause. Nor did we have our
whole families with us because of a sim-
ilar response.

For my partner and me, it was a personal
decision who we told about our wedding,
who we asked to join us in our celebra-
tion. It was painful planning something
that filled us with such joy and at the
same time made us startlingly aware of
its unrespectability. However, in her eyes
I found all the love reflected that one
could need. I found the words filled with
the divine that blesses. I found the valid-
ity in our union. 1 do believe that a day
will come when she and I are legally
joined, but it will take working for it, de-
manding the respect we all deserve, and
showing that we value our commitment.
It will take exposing the bias that still
rules our courts.

In designing my own wedding, I decided

December 1991

to view the unconventionality as a free-
dom. We can decide how we want our
weddings and where, without the tradi-
tional constraints imposed on us. A mar-
riage is an intimate union between two
people, it need not have a legal process to
validate it, it need not be sanctified by a
church that wears blinders to the times
we live in. But it can be, as it was for my
partner and me, a moment when the rain
clouds cleared and the sun fully gave its
blessing. As we stood in that chapel by
the sea and exchanged vows, the mar-
riage became for us all that it needed to
be. V

   

  

864°7198 .
FAX 658-1556 '

éodgxlaln

Animal lnn

pl.

Carol Skon

6% GROOMING

Claudia Cook
11.0.1 Box 1930 Fairfax,Vt.05454 802-524-4574

BOARDING

TRAINING

    

Green Mountain
Feminist Counseling Service
Carol'E. Cohen M.S.W.

- Life and Career Crises
- Substance Abuse

Individuals. Couples. Groups
Burlington. 864-5595

-Troubled Relationships
-Lesbian and Gay Positive

- Sliding Fee

19