We chipped away at a surreal universe, and now the high court has caught up
Imagine being a generic heterosexual person who wakes one morning to find that perfect strangers can determine who you’re allowed to marry or even with whom you can have sex. Thirteen years ago, when I first walked out of my outwardly heterosexual life, finally honest about being a lesbian, it felt as if I’d woken in exactly that surreal universe. Maybe since I was never thrilled about being married to a man, I’d never realized the implicit invisible privilege.
I was flabbergasted. Friends had to talk me down. The anger grew when my lover-at-the-time was hospitalized and I had no access. She could have gone into a bar the day before and married a stranger who would have been automatically admitted to her side. I imagined leaping the counter, grabbing a nurse by the collar.
Time passed. It got a little better. The Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws and the sense of intrusion receded a little. Hospitals changed their policies. My friends felt a bit safer showing casual affection in public, in some places — inner cities only, not in the suburbs, or out in the country, or when traveling. Still, I would watch couples in restaurants or on the street, hands held across a table or walking arm-in-arm, a gentle kiss goodbye. How without fear or even self-consciousness these public gestures, their privilege invisible to them.
After two years with the new
Girlfriend, we moved in together. But her place of business refused to include me on her health plan. At her next job, they allowed her to include me, then reported my coverage to the Fed as her income so that the Fed taxed us. This gay tax on my health care was over $1,000 a year.
Often I thought, we were living as married people anyway. It’s just a piece of paper. That piece of paper the government refused to grant us became more and more superfluous. In fact, I found there was a startling joy in waking each day next to the right person, knowing that no contract or even fear of the headaches involved in breaking that contract was keeping her with me one more minute than she wanted. Here was her warm presence in my bed, gentle breath, beside me, only because she still wanted to be there. I found that fragility beautiful.
So I stopped waiting for the government to “grant” legitimacy to the most intimate part of my life. We created that legitimacy. I felt I was saying no to the surreal universe, drawing a line, taking back what should always have been mine.
Ten years passed. The government decided it couldn’t tax my insurance benefits, and we celebrated. It became “in” to be gay. Euphemisms fell away. Then one day a lawyer friend in D.C. invited us for a visit. Against logic, conviction, past discussions, plans, we found ourselves responding with, “Yes, and will you marry us?” Why? Because we could. It was important that we could.
This spring, we arrived in D.C. just as SCOTUS was beginning to hear arguments about samesex marriage. The surreal landscape continued — we wandered among demonstrators outside the Supreme Court waving signs that commented on our love, our most private moments, and whether or not we could be parents.
For some those private aspects of our lives threatened their sense of family and marriage, although we had no desire to intrude on them as we were being intruded upon.
Many people from news agencies with their equipment also wandered through the crowd. A Gay Men’s Chorus lined up and sang “We Shall Overcome” again and again. They sang slowly, peacefully, like an elegy. Against their quiet a capella, members of a right-wing organization took turns shouting into a microphone about danger and sin and our dirty ways.
We spent the rest of the day shopping for just the right bouquet and lining up a wedding cake. I teased the Girlfriend about being so sweetly old-fashioned.
We got married the next day in the Moongate Garden on the grounds of the Smithsonian, a couple of blocks from SCOTUS. Weddings are not allowed on the Smithsonian grounds. We left Texas to get married and then got married in a place that forbids weddings. We simply marched in and performed our ceremony. There was a woman on a bench eating a sandwich. She put it down and watched. The girlfriend wore a pretty dress and sandals. Our godson played troubadour on guitar, flowers in his hair.
Our friend began with “Dearly beloved.” We read poetry, and teared up, and said “I do,” and kissed. We had walked in separately. We walked out together.
I did not think it would happen, but we were changed. I did not know it would, but it made a difference.
For me, it was seeing such raw openness in her face, vulnerable, trusting me so, and hearing her formal commitment to sharing her whole life and not just one more day. It felt like the privilege of a lifetime, unearned.
So a few more pieces of the surreal landscape chipped away. Now we have to file federal taxes as “Married Filing Jointly.” We bought a house together. We say, “my wife.” Lax resides in Houston and is the author of “Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home,” now available for pre-orders on Amazon. You can meet her and hear her read from her memoir at Brazos Bookstore on Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.