It's just a piece of paper ...

I can hear people saying that what Frank and I have goes way beyond paper and legal niceties. And they're right. BUT...

That little piece of paper that Frank picked up yesterday from the courthouse, our marriage license from the District of Columbia, is an affirmation, is a guarantee, and is a victory!

It is our chance to publicly and legally declare our love and commitment to each other just like (as a mildly homophobic former colleague at CSC once said) "regular people" do. It affirms that we are just as deserving of respect and civil rights as any other US citizens. That little piece of paper allows us to feel almost equal.

In the handful of states that recognize our marriage it guarantees us rights of visitation and decision-making in times of illness and underpins our wills and other legal documents. UNFORTUNATELY, it has absolutely NO standing in the state where we live, Virginia, but it might help us if the other is hospitalized or dies in (God forbid!) Virginia. Of course we still have to file separately for taxes and have to hedge our wills and medical powers of attorney with all sorts of legal protections for them to have any weight. But it's a step forward for a group of people once denied all rights.

This little piece of paper is most certainly a victory. On March 9th, a year ago almost, the first marriages were performed for lesbians and gay men in the District of Columbia, after US District Court ruled against a motion for a referendum on the issue. It is also 50 years, more or less exactly, since Dr. Frank Kameny launched his frontal assault on official federal and local discrimination against homosexuals, declaring that being gay " ... is not only not immoral but that, for those choosing to engage in homosexual acts, such acts are moral in a real and positive sense, and are good, right, and desirable, socially and personally."

And so, that marriage license is far from being just a little bit of paper!

Mark