Columnists :: Guest Opinion
Marriage - again by Patricia A. Gozemba
Bay Windows ContributorThursday May 22, 2008 California, what great company you are in. Our courts have blazed the path. Massachusetts and California - two down and forty-eight to go. Bi-coastal dignity is not enough. The promise of liberty and equality for all means just that - for all.
We won marriage equality because the Massachusetts court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that all citizens are guaranteed "equal protection" under the law. Your court went further and ruled that marriage is a "fundamental right." Mary Bonauto, the victorious attorney in Goodridge, could barely contain her joy with the California decision. In a Boston Globe? article she said, "This is not a little ripple in a pond. This is a wave. This is big. What Massachusetts did was extraordinarily significant. Someone had to be first but having the second state be the largest in the country, with an influential judiciary, makes it quite a powerhouse."
So now, a far-reaching decision from an "influential judiciary" has expanded marriage equality to a combined population of nearly 43 million in our states. For how long will the other 239 million tolerate the denial of dignity to our families?
California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, a moderate Republican, wrote the landmark decision that declared marriage is "central . . . to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful and satisfying life as a full member of society." In underscoring the court’s family values, he wrote that withholding marriage from us "works a real and appreciable harm upon same-sex couples and their children." Two other Republicans and one Democrat joined the chief justice in this 4-3 decision.
Like Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, George understood the importance the "m" word - marriage - makes in the lives of those who opt for it. Marshall wrote, "Without the right to marry - or more properly, the right to choose to marry - one is excluded from the full range of human experience and denied full protection of the laws for one’s ’avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship.’"
Considered together, the elegant and forceful language of the Massachusetts and California decisions marks a tectonic shift in the lives of the people affected - the families seeking to be part of "we" in "we the people." And we are persistent in seeking our dignity and rights.
Steve Galante and Bill Pluckhahn of Beverly, Massachusetts sought that validation for the first time on September 26, 1993 in a commitment ceremony in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Salem. On September 26, 2001, they entered into a civil union in Vermont. On September 26, 2004, they married in Manchester, Massachusetts in a large wedding with their parents, siblings, and friends gathered in a celebration of them and their five children. Ben, the oldest at 18, sang "You Raise Me Up," and there wasn’t a dry eye in the chapel.
With his trademark candor, Steve explains "as much as we thought the ’legal’ marriage in 2004 was about us, it was so clear on that day just how much it meant to our kids." Bill adds, "The kids knew that our family was every bit as valid and legal and worthy as all the other families they knew."
All five of their kids love to watch a video of the 2004 wedding in which they each had a role. "It really hit Bill and me how affected the kids were by the wedding when we saw them in the video," says Steve. "They were so proud and excited interacting with family and friends and watching us at the altar."
And now, adds Steve, "They love recognizing our anniversary ... September 26th is an important day to our whole family."
Steve and Bill’s eleven-year journey to marriage, while unusual, is not an isolated example. The 10,000 same-sex couples who have married here to show their love and commitment, to have their relationship recognized, and to protect their families are no different from folks in California. Couples like Lisa Berg and Rosanne Schembri of Valencia come to mind.
On May 15th when I spoke with Lisa, she had just gotten off the phone after asking her partner Rosanne, "Will you marry me?" Rosanne’s reply was, "Again?" You see, they have been together for 29 years and have been trying to protect their relationship in any way they could. In 1979 they had a holy union in Los Angeles. In 2001 they had a civil union in Vermont. In 2005, they had a domestic partnership in California. In 2006, they married in Toronto. Now they will marry in California. Again.
Patricia A. Gozemba co-authored with Karen Kahn and photographer Marilyn Humphries the book Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First Legal Same-Sex Marriages (Beacon Press, 2007) www.courtingequality.com. She may be reached at authors@courtingequality.com.
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