Gay Marriage--Take 3!

I knew better than this. You don't park a packed car festooned with bikes in Central Square and walk away. True it was next to the farmer's market. True we had a bike lock tethering the bikes to one another. But really it was only asking for trouble.

Kim felt differently. "Who's gonna steal our stuff with all these people shopping?"

I nodded thinking, "Who's gonna stop them?"

Our Vermont plates amplified our vulnerability (or outright stupidity). Still we had no choice. We were lucky enough to find midday parking with, it turns out, the farmer's market consuming most of the public lot.

It was the start of a two week family vacation for me, Kim, and Anakin. We would end up in Maine, but had tacked on Boston for the purpose of a marriage license. From Central Square, Cambridge City Hall was just a few blocks away.  All we had to do was leave the car, run over and file the paperwork, and then book it back. If we were successful, Kim would be able to return and collect our marriage license on one of her frequent work trips to the city (and a Justice of the Peace friend could then marry us). She could not file for the license without me, however. We had to both be at City Hall to file for the license, and we are rarely both in Boston.

"We could leave Fly in the car to guard our stuff, I suppose." Our border collie is an excellent watch dog, but even as I muttered it, I knew it was stupid. You also don't leave your dog in the car in Central Square. And you especially don't do so on an 80 degree day.

So we took him.

I plugged quarters into the meter and then turned to cast a golden circle over the car like my mother taught me to do in Manhattan. Inside I spied Anakin's DVD player hanging carelessly from the back of the front passenger seat. Another no-no.

Anakin took off into the market. Kim giggled like a school girl.

At the stalls we sampled chocolate and pasta and bought Honey Gold apples. Ani munched gleefully. Fly proved he is capable of a city stroll, leash and all.

"He's never been to the city before," Ani informed a man two blocks later who was looking for a handout by the T entrance. I said something to Ani about not talking to people you don't know, but mostly the three of us skipped pleasantly along.

It was funny how giddy we felt on this errand, Kim and I. It was supposed to just be paperwork, not a big deal. And the point wasn't to feel like adolescents but like responsible grownups. We were twenty years into our partnership, our seven year old son (and nine year old dog) in tow, and we were getting a legal marriage under our belts to better protect our family. This time there would be no fanfare (our commitment ceremony was in 1998), no awe at state recognition (felt with our Vermont Civil Union in 2001). We were just dotting our I's and crossing our T's.

Right?

It was a gorgeous sunny day. Cambridge City Hall loomed before us. Suddenly I was aware that how this went would be something we would always remember.  If our car were ripped off it would cast a pall over this event in perpetuity. It would be karmic disaster. It would have nothing whatsoever to do with our being gay, but we would feel victimized by the whole experience. Like someone made us park our car full of all our precious stuff replete with mountain bikes and leave it in the middle of the city because we are lesbians and this is the only way we could get married. Because, after all, this whole marriage thing has been such a long time in coming and now here we are finally doing it and what happens? We get robbed. (Never mind that we could also be married in Vermont but haven't done that paperwork either!)

I kept my mouth shut, however, because mostly we are feeling happy and silly (which is a gift to feel in your 40s). So silly that we have no idea what we will do with our dog. He can't come in and we can't leave him outside (no one seems to do that anymore, besides Fly doesn't tie-out well in our yard in Vermont, never mind here in Cambridge).

We decide that we will file for marriage in shifts. Ani and I will go in and get the process started. Then I will come out and relieve Kim of the dog, and she'll go in and do her part of the forms. Cambridge is so gay friendly, it just might work. It's why we chose it in the first place.

Indeed, back in 2004, Cambridge City Hall had opened up one minute past midnight the day gay marriage licenses were legalized in Massachusetts. At the time a good friend of ours was working there and he told us about that night, how they'd decked out the building with streamers to help the betrothed celebrate, how five thousand people cheered outside, how he and his partner had married that night themselves, how his city department had surprised them with a wedding cake.

Now, six years later, Kim and I were here almost on impulse. It hadn't been our plan to pursue the Massachusetts gay marriage option before Vermont's.  Indeed, readers will recall that Kim and I have been somewhat stalled on the whole legal marriage thing. Stalled because while Anakin badly wants a wedding (to his rather fastidious specifications), we have in fact had (and paid for) one already. For the law, therefore, we are grateful. For the forced enactment of yet another ritual… we have been somewhat less enthusiastic.

This spring, however, we thought things through a bit more and came to the following conclusions:
1.    Our son is not remotely unusual for having missed his parents wedding (in 1998) and need not be compensated for his absence with the wedding of his dreams.
2.    Our son does, however, need to be part of this legal ritual and assured that his family is legit and legal as well as relieved of any lingering confusion he may have that we actually broke the law in 1998 with our non-legally binding commitment ceremony (it has come up).
3.    While we are in no rush, we do feel irresponsible for not having all the legal protections now available to our family.
4.    Filing in Vermont with no fanfare whatsoever just doesn't feel right.

Then in July, Massachusetts re-entered the picture. A federal judge in Boston ruled that the federal ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, and that same-sex married couples in Massachusetts are entitled to the same federal benefits that heterosexual married couples enjoy.  It's all quite confusing, but the way we heard it, couples married in Massachusetts might be on a faster road to federal marriage benefits (like social security) than elsewhere. A Massachusetts gay marriage, therefore, became an interesting option: savvy paperwork to file in the short term that in no way precludes a Vermont ceremony in the future. It would allow us to do the right thing, but not short-shrift the Vermont ritual we know our son needs.

And so here we were facing Cambridge City Hall, finally ready to join the party: silly grins on our faces, dog fully extended on his lead, and our car likely stripped down to its upholstery back in Central Square.

Inside, at the desk, I explained to a beleaguered-looking clerk why I was there and was relieved when she immediately brightened.

"Congratulations!" she greeted me. But then added, more somberly, "But you both have to be here."

"Yes, I know," I reassured her. "We read about it online. My partner is just outside."

She nodded and asked when we were planning our wedding and I explained that we didn't have a date, that this was just paperwork, that we'd been together 20 years. Then, getting into the colorful absurdity of it all, I continued with how we were just down from Vermont to do the license and how our car was now packed with bikes at a meter in Central Square.

Her eyes widened.

With tongue in cheek, I told her not to worry, that I’d cast a golden circle over it before jogging over.

“Okay, but we do need you both inside to do this,” she continued, rolling with my giddiness.

“Well,” I retorted, “she’s outside with the dog. So we figure we’ll do the forms in shifts.”

She caught the eye of an older woman coworker who slowly shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. You do both have to be here at the desk. But we are open until 8 p.m. tonight.”

Ack! I saw that she really meant it. Yet we’d come so far, and there wasn’t even a line! I explained we had no way to return later without our things, that we had no other option.

“I guess,” I mused, “I’ll go get Kim and cast a golden circle over my son and dog?”

The clerk jumped slightly and then, to my delight, caved.

“Oh bring in the dog! We love dogs!”  (Her colleague nodded in vigorous agreement.)

I turned to Ani, but he was already out the door to get them. Exhaling, I knew we’d hit a karmic home run. The car would be fine, as would the bikes and the DVD player.

And indeed, there were even nine minutes left on the meter.

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson