photo by Matthew Kim

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I still favour a Constitutional Right to Sexual Pleasure, which I spent my third year writing up in law school. I never published it, but it will make an appearance in The Law Project.

The pragmatist in me finds criminalizing sex toys just plain funny in any state that sells vegetables.

"I belong to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (while fishing a card for me out of her pocketbook) and we have many gay couples. And they're very ordinary. They have jobs. I don't like it when people are half-naked. …When we were having dinner with friends the other day…they've been together 25 years, and, well they're retired now, and they were holding hands. I felt so good inside. Not tolerant you see, I felt good."

–A Holocaust survivor in the locker room at the YMCA (and I'm not just adding that detail in for irony)

Now I am thinking a little.

Do you feel any different?

Yes. I feel relentlessly loving toward Stacey. I am not annoyed by anything she does. I have been happy every day. I can now feel the ground beneath my feet. 

We were together 5 and a half years and lived together for 3 before marrying. I never did the lesbian UHaul thing because I had thought moving in together would be the only marker of commitment I would have. Years ago, I didn't think I'd have family support for a marriage and for more years than that I didn't think I'd find someone to marry. I certainly *never* anticipated the possibility that I could get legally married. Now that it's all happened I am amazed at how different I feel. 

Where are the photos? 

 Our excellent documentary photographer Ian Taylor's + few from my sister Wendy + Paul Schreiber's. You are welcome to use Ian's photos, but you must name the people in the photos, credit him and link to his site: iantaylor.ca 

What did it feel like to get married?

Joyful and powerful. Like this. 

Why get married?

I am well aware of all the arguments against it.

Same-sex marriage was my moot court issue back when I went to law school and I had to argue for and against it. Jane Larson, my mentor in law school showed me the legal history of marriage and it's pretty much slavery without knowing you're a slave (eg. no ability to exist legally as a person at all, no ability to own property, a husband has a right to beat and rape you).

It's not just fundamentalist religious folks and scaredy cats who have problems with gay marriage. Plenty of queer folks do too. Many feel it's just something to support property rights for people with money, that it leads to more conformity and assimilation. And why need the government to acknowledge your relationship at all?

Well it's what I wanted to do. What we wanted to do.

We want to spend our lives together. Family and community are important to us. Ritual gave us an opportunity to mark an important transition and deepening of our commitment. The wedding is also a common language with our mostly heterosexual families and friends. We didn't get married to make them happy, but the structure provided  a way to really connect our two families. Witnessing is powerful. Theatre is a central part of my life because I believe in the transformative power of people connecting deeply together. There's a spiritual element to it too. And it's an amazing feeling to have a day when everyone you know is focussed on your couple-hood.

I've always wanted to experience having the important people in my life, our lives, come together at once. While I'm alive.

You can redefine and reclaim a word and an act. We give our acts meaning.  

What the hell do gay people have to teach straight people about marriage? 

The same thing African-Americans have to teach whites about voting. What it means when you want it, work for it and choose it consciously.

You're a tomboy. What's with the dress?

I am proud to work it many ways.

What was it like to look for a dress?

Really hard and freaky, and then really great. 

Video to come. 

Where did you find your dress?

kelima k. in NY. She's a very cool designer who's originally from the Bay Area, and the most chilled out person I've met in NY so far. I found her on yelp. She works with theatre and installation artists too. It made me very happy to find something that felt really unique that spoke to me. And I wanted to support an artist. The dress is silk and like the many knotted dresses she makes inspired by the obis her Japanese grandmother gave her when she was young. I'm not even remotely Asian but got over my co-opting trepidations to wear it. Beauty is beauty.

Isn't monogomy unnatural?

I can only share my experience. Everyone's truth is their own. Desire is natural. Love is too. But commitment is chosen and it changes things. 

I desire Stacey more. I did not know this would happen. I share this and this poem ( Read First

Second ) because it is a question I asked many times and that other have asked me. And let's face it: committing yourself sexually has only been made more meaningful in the past 40 years because it is really more of a true choice for women now that one isn't socially cut off for being sexual without marriage. I mean people used to get married in order to have sex. No wonder divorce rates got so high.

In my case I wanted partnership and commitment because I did date around and had flings and eventually found I wanted something else. 

How great is Stacey? 

Not enough room or words to explain that right now. She is my teacher. 

How did you meet?

At Burning Man, which I'd spent years mocking as a place where overweight software developers went because they wouldn't cough up the bucks to go to a strip joint. The evangelical zeal of many friends telling me it would change my life pushed me the other way. Let's just say that I went on a spur of the moment decision and found there that, like life, it has everything you think you don't like and that you're sure about, and a lot more. Out of the 30,000 people I can't imagine there was more than a handful of lesbians. I met Stacey. My life was changed. I now enjoy being less certain about things. 

How do Canadians feel about gay marriage?

But you're from California, can't you already get married there?

Legally, no. Just because you saw it happen on Will & Grace, doesn't make it so.  

Does your marriage count where you live? 

Legally, no. Not a single person I spoke with, when I was wedding shopping realized this.

WTF?

I couldn't agree with you more. We don't live in Massachusetts, which is the only place to do it in the US. Donate, vote and tell your legislators how you feel.  

Why use the term "marriage"?

1. Cause that's what it is. 2. I'm not gonna say "Stacey and I have a great civil union." Would you?  

What do you call each other? 

We were calling each other "partner" before the wedding. We've been surprisingly enjoying "wife" in all it's post-modern ironic-ality. It feels like I want to acknowledge the change.

Did you have a honeymoon?

No, and we're kinda bummed about it. But Stace is in med school. This summer after our next wedding we'll go somewhere. 

Why are you getting married again?

To have a meaningful ritual + Jewish wedding (reinvented to be meaningful for us both) with our community and friends in SF. As states recognize gay marriage we will probably have to get married many other times.  

 Can I watch the ceremony? 

Is there anything else I can watch, heh heh? 

Our first dance. (thanks Paul Schreiber). Only in the United States does half the country want to keep me from getting legally married, and half want to pay to watch my wedding night. (And usually, the same half.)

If you have any other questions, just leave 'em below and I'll update the Just Married FAQ.

1. My mother is obsessed with my wedding. She is obnoxious and annoying. What do I do?
   
   Congratulations. This means you are finally being treated like everyone else.
2. I always learned that the parents of the bride pay for the wedding. But there's two brides?
   
   Don't feel guilty. This is the only time the income disparity between gay men and lesbians is reversed.
3. Which one is the man?
   
   If you have to ask, neither.
4. What gift should we buy?
   
   Something expensive. In America, if you buy them enough stuff, the marriage counts.
5. How do we deal with our interfaith marriage ceremony?
   
   Don't worry about it. You're already going to hell for being gay.

The cunning realist blog discovered that all sorts of folks share tips on the Internet and form community, even johns who view women like this:

Heading over there myself in a week or two and am 50 / 50 on local action. Have been defense contracting for years (Egypt / Jordan / Yugo / Germany / Italy / Hungary) … never had an issue finding good quality locals for dirt cheap.

More of this crap here. I'd thought lit theory in college used up any interest I had in naming things misogynist, racist, colonialist etc, but what else do you call this? Most succinctly: dehumanizing.

The commenters on his blog, like this one named Matt Connolly, say things like:

So what's new? I was in the service in Japan in the early '60s and it was the thing to do to have a young Japanese woman as a mistress for the 13 month tour and then to return home to the wife in America. It has been forty years plus since then and we seemed to have endured. We also did the same in Vietnam.

What's new Matt? More media. The Internet. And that means more transparency. And that means more people seeing the reality of the crap we do. Specifically in this case: that men do to women, that moneyed are doing to poor, that America is doing to Iraq, that sexual shooting galleries do to hope of meaningful connection and genuine intimacy.

Tip of the toque to Andrew Sullivan.

There were sexy acrobats hanging from sheets and lesbian hair from every era and to top it off, Martina Navratilova, the first real, out lesbian I ever saw and the best tennis player too.

In the mdst of the festivities they auctioned off a racquet of Martina's from the 70s. It was used to win a Grand Slam in mixed doubles. It fetched (with a hug), more than $14,000 via live auction.

And the fearless leader let us all know, they'd "raised enough to cut off Antonin Scalia's left ball." It was like Eugene Levy stating that the Jewish media conspiracy had finally achieved it's goal of worldwide domination via rugelach.

It was a room of many ethnicities, races, genders and finances. I've never before been at any hoo hah event where the folks with the most money didn't seem to be treated like they were from a distinctly superior caste.

I wished I had a bank account with a million dollars in it so I too could write a cheque and give it to Kate Kendall to stuff in her shirt with the other spontaneous donations. Like she said, they can't wait to close the doors on NCLR. But they won't do it one day before we have full equality.