Personal Voices: Wedding Whiplash
Belief:
Why I Want to Turn Religious People Into Atheists
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
4 Myths About Taxes, Debunked
Paul Buchheit
DrugReporter:
The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not
Jim Hightower
Environment:
White House Garden Won't Make Up for Obama's Nomination of Pesticide Lobbyist for US Chief Agriculture Negotiator
Jill Richardson
Food:
Don't Be Scared of Food: Are We Being Needlessly Hysterical About Food Safety?
David E. Gumpert
Health and Wellness:
47,000 Women Could Die As a Result of the New Mammogram Guidelines
George Lakoff
Immigration:
Hate Group, FAIR, Is Looking for "Ethnically Ambiguous" Actors to Amplify Its Racism
Adam Luna
Media and Technology:
The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives
Mark Ames
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
Daniela Perdomo
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Vanessa Richmond
Rights and Liberties:
Citing "National Defense Needs," Obama Administration Says it Won't Sign Ban on Land Mines
Amy Goodman
Sex and Relationships:
Hot Mormon Muffins and Models for Jesus: What's With All the Sexy Christians?
Liz Langley
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Is Obama Following in the Footsteps of Bill Clinton?
Jeff Cohen
Whew! I have whiplash! First my wedding wasn't even dreamable. Then, suddenly, I was Sadie Married Lady, along with 7,400 other gay and lesbian folks hitching our hopes onto a fast-moving train through San Francisco. Now, the Supreme Court has stopped the forward motion – at least for now. What a ride!
Truth is for a very long time, marriage was not my thing. When I fell in love with Bonnie Hagenbaken at age 12, I instinctively knew that a conventional life would not be mine. When she whispered "Let's pretend to get married," I knew pretend was the operative word.
Later my feminism was fueled by watching in horror as even the smart girls spent months obsessing about weddings that would be years in the future, and worse, when those weddings happened, too many of my brilliant friends' lives faded to gray, their dreams deferred to those of their husbands. I quietly boycotted heterosexual weddings for the better part of two decades.
All this provided no preparation for the wonder of my own wedding earlier this month. Lydia and I – together six years, registered domestic partners – first got inspired when our friends started trekking up to San Francisco on Valentine's weekend, standing in the rain with their kids for hours, sending joyous photos across the Internet. But the decision was cinched by an email from my 10-year-old niece. For her current events class, Alice wrote that those opposed to the weddings in San Francisco were wrong. Why? "Because, she wrote, I have a lesbian aunt in California and she has a wonderful partner and they deserve to get married." So there.
We asked my best friend of 20 years, State Senator Sheila Kuehl, if she would do the honors, and on International Women's Day 2004 my beloved Lydia and I exchanged rings and vows on the steps of the Rotunda in San Francisco's City Hall. We were joined that day by five other couples – all together for 20 years or more, most of us a closely knit friendship circle of activists and artists.
Because Lydia and I believe that change will happen most profoundly when our love shines out, melting the fear and lies, this happy occasion started as much a public statement as a personal ceremony. I could feel Harvey Milk's spirit smiling down at us in that historic place, just feet away from where hatred struck him down a quarter century ago. It felt just great to reap the fruits of decades of gay rights activism.
But both of us were surprised at how personal the political also turned out to be. We were overwhelmed by the phone call and emails from around the country. My coworkers decorated our entire house with lavender and white flowers and streamers to surprise us when we got back at midnight from San Fran. Lydia's surgery group at Kaiser gave us the perfect lesbian wedding present: a big ol' gift certificate to Home Depot. My mom had the best line: "Now I won't have to be Lydia's Mother Out-Law anymore."
Maybe we're just dizzy from our newlywed bliss, but I have a feeling those ripples of joy – ours and so many others – are going to break down archaic laws sooner than anyone would have imagined even a few months ago. And it feels pretty fabulous to be part of the tide of history.
Torie Osborn is the Executive Director of the Liberty Hill Foundation.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
| More News and Analysis: | ||
|
Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Thanks to AIG, some of the poorest residents of rural Kentucky learned you can always be made poorer by corporate villains. By Yasha Levine, AlterNet. November 26, 2009. |
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show Politics: The White House released records cataloguing 575 visits by health care industry heavyweights since Jan. 20. The ties run deep. By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet. November 26, 2009. |
Why I Want to Turn Religious People Into Atheists Belief: Atheism isn't an attack on diversity, it's a defense of reality. By Greta Christina, AlterNet. November 26, 2009. |
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.