Posted in category "Lesbians & Gays"
Two weeks ago Bolivian citizens voted to approve a new constitution. Exit polls estimated about 60 per cent of voters had approved the document that is designed to give more rights to the indigenous minority and give the government more control over the economy. It would also allow the president, Evo Morales, to run for a second five-year term.
Mr. Morales is an Aymara Indian who leads the ruling party, the Movement to Socialism. The campaign pitted poor, heavily indigenous western areas where Mr. Morales is revered against whites and mixed-race mestizos in the natural gas-rich tropical lowlands.
The campaign to change the country’s constitution sparked a religious battle.
Pre-referendum campaign ads by evangelical christians showed Bolivia’s leftist president dressed in the garb of a traditional shaman. An image of Jesus Christ arrived to knock Mr. Morales off the screen, and a document labeled “New Constitution” appears amid flames. “Choose God. Vote No” the ad advises.
At the heart of fight is the new constitution’s stated goal of “refounding” Bolivia as a “socially-just state guided by indigenous beliefs–including elevating the female Andean earth deity, PachaMama, to the same stature as the God of Christianity. Bolivia’s previous constitution allowed for freedom of religion, but specifies Roman Catholicism as the sole state religion.
The new constitution recognizes broad new rights for Bolivia’s Indians, termed “originating indigenous farming peoples” in the document, and demands “decolonization” of all aspects of society.
For Christians, whose faith arrived in Bolivia with the Spanish Conquistadors almost 500 years ago, the fight is over fundamental values, which they say the new constitution shoves aside, and replaces with ultra liberal concepts, or worse, indigenous religions.
They contend the new constitution appears to opens the door to abortion and gay marriage, although it doesn’t speak directly to either issue.
The Catholic church hoped the constitution would define life as beginning at conception, and marriage as being between a man and a woman. The text doesn’t offer a clear definition on either point, instead offering broad statements such as one that “guarantees the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights,” language that has religious groups worried. “One of the problems with the constitution is that it’s full of ambiguity,” said Robert Flock, vicar general of the Santa Cruz archdiocese. The constitution “could open the door to a civil law allowing homosexual marriage if there was a public will to do that.”
The Catholic church disavowed the evangelical christian ads, but followed with its own detailed critique of the proposed constitution, handed out after Mass in cities around Bolivia prior to the election. While praising Mr. Morales’ focus on the poor, it raised concerns about his effort to concentrate power in his hands.
In a country that is officially 95% Catholic, the stance by church leaders carries significant weight. So much so that on the day before the referendum Mr. Morales–who has actively promoted indigenous beliefs, including appointing traditional medicine men to his government–publicly declared himself a Catholic, though believing “quite a bit” in PachaMama. 
After opposing a United Nations declaration that called for the decriminalization of homosexuality last month, the Vatican issued its own call to eliminate criminal penalties for homosexuality.
“The Holy See appreciates the attempts made in (the declaration) to condemn all forms of violence against homosexual persons as well as urge states to take necessary measures to put an end to all criminal penalties against them,” the statement said.
“The Holy See continues to advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual persons should be avoided,” said Vatican spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi.
An explanatory note published in the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said that if the resolution on sexual orientation aimed simply at ensuring no country treated homosexuality as a crime, “there would have been no reason for (the Vatican) to criticize that document.”
“The Catholic church maintains that free sexual acts between adult persons must not be treated as crimes to be punished by civil authorities,” said the newspaper. 
The Vatican specifically objected to the declaration’s use of the terms, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” According to L’Osservatore Romano, these terms “imply that sexual identity is defined only by culture,” and their use in the declaration is part of an attempt to “equate same-sex unions with marriage and give homosexual couples the change to adopt or ‘procreate’ children.”
The paper argued that the declaration would endanger “other human rights,” such as “liberty of expression…thought, conscience and religion,” since it might limit religions in their freedom to teach that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the U.N., warned the European-backed text could “create new and implacable discriminations.” “For example,” he said, “states that do not recognize same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.”
The Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was presented to the U.N. General Assembly on December 18, 2008. This non-binding declaraton, which was sponsored by France and backed by the 27-member European Union, received 66 votes in the 192-member U.N. General Assembly. Aside from the Holy See, opponents included China, Russia, the United States and the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Sponsors of the European text point out that homosexuality is still punishable by law in 93 countries and by death in seven of them, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Nigeria.
An opposing Arab-backed statement, read out at the United Nations by Syria, said the European text could lead to “the social normalisation, and possibly the legitimisation, of many deplorable acts including paedophilia.”
Fr. Lombardi told Reuters that the Vatican did not support the Arab-backed statement, either.
The Vatican’s tilt toward leniency didn’t rub off on the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez. 
The cardinal fumed that “killing children (abortion) or promoting marriages between all kinds of people, men with men, women with women,” leads to nowhere. The countries that choose to experiment with these things “will sink morally,” he added.
“I don’t thank the U.N. for anything, nothing, since today it is making such a great effort to spread this immortality throughout the entire world,” Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez continued. Calling on Domincans to “defend our country,” the cardinal exclaimed, “To those who want to come and bring that immorality here, get out! We are not interested.”
Those comments weren’t the cardinal’s first anti-gay press foray.
According to El Nacional, back in November 2007, the Cardinal, arguing that fidelity should be at the core of education efforts to stem pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases “explained that for those reasons the Catholic church was opposed to promiscuity between ‘heterosexuals and maricones’ because sex had to be of the moment and between a man and a woman.”While discussing gays coming to Santa Domingo, RodrÃguez remarked, “They should stay in Europe or the United States, we don’t need that social trash, we don’t need it.”
I wonder if the maricones Cardinal RodrÃguez has met among his clergy and in the Vatican appreciated being called “social trash.” I doubt it.
Proposition 8 was a California constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Much to the utter shock of many people, especially gay people in California that took tolerance for granted, the measure passed on election day. The people who voted for it in the largest numbers were black Christians who also pulled the lever for Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama. Obama won, but so did Proposition 8. 
The California dioceses and California Catholic Conference weighed in against the measure, and the Knights of Columbus provided over $1 million for media and public relations efforts. Against this flood one gay priest spoke out against it, Father Geoff Farrow. Who said all the good men were gone from the priesthood?
Shock, anger, bitter disappointment, hostility, disillusionment, grim resolve…Quo Vadis, lesbian and gay Catholics? Walk away from Rome, or walk back to your people?
Two of the Roman Catholic dioceses in California have made an effort to extend an conciliatory hand to homosexual Catholics and others who support gay marriage, and worked for the defeat of Proposition 8.
Shortly after the vote, when name-calling and tempers on both sides were starting to rise, Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco made an appeal for public civility, gently chiding everyone that “tolerance, respect and trust are two-ways streets, and tolerance, respect and trust often do not include agreement or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.”
“While we argue among ourselves,” he continued, “the people who need our help with hunger, unemployment, homelessless and other problems wait for us to turn together toward them. More particularly, we Catholics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco need to minister to the needs of all Catholics in this local church. Whoever they are and whatever their circumstances, their spiritual and pastoral rights should be respected, together with their membership in the church. In that spirit, with God’s grace and much prayer, perhaps we can all move forward together.”
On December 3, 2008, about a month after the passage of Proposition 8, Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, and all six of the auxiliary bishops signed a letter titled – A Pastoral Message to Homosexual Catholics in the Archiocese of Los Angeles.
“As bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” the letter begins, “we are addressing this message first of all to homosexual members of our church. Given the controversy generated by the passage of Proposition 8, we want to reassure each of you that you are cherished members of the Catholic Church and we value you as equal and active members of the body of Christ.” 
“The passage of Proposition 8 in the state of California does not diminish in any way the importance of you, our homosexual brothers and sisters in the church. Nor does it lessen your personal dignity and value as full members of the body of Christ. The church’s support of Proposition 8 was our effort to resist a legal redefinition of marriage.”
“We were disappointed that the ballot information about Proposition 8 stated that the purpose of the initiative was ‘to ban gay marriage.’ From the very beginning, this was not our purpose.”
“Proposition 8 was never intended, directly or indirectly, to lessen the value and importance of gay and lesbian persons. Your intrinsic values as human beings and as brothers and sisters continues without change. If we had ever thought that the intent of this proposition was to harm you or anyone in the state of California, we would not have supported it. We are personally grateful for the witness and service of so many dedicated and generous homosexual Catholics. We pledge our commitment to safeguard your dignity.”
“We welcome thoughtful and civil dialogue with you so that we can deepen our realization that all of us cherish God’s creative life which we equally share. We are committed to find ways to eliminate discrimination against homosexual persons and to help guarantee the basic rights which belong to each of us.”
Read the whole letter here.
The remaining California Dioceses of San Diego, Orange, Fresno, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, San Bernadino, Monterey, Santa Rosa, and Stockton have apparently declined to offer any post-Proposition 8 reconciliation.
Archbishop Niederauer and Cardinal Mahoney did go out on a limb to reach out and reassure gay Catholics. Their statements were disingenuous in spots, but for the most part I believe they are sincere.
I hope one of them is willing to offer Fr. Geoff a pastoral position, if he needs to leave Fresno.
Just when I think the Pope is going to advocate for the environment in his Christmas message, he uses it instead to deliver a shot at gay people as unnatural:
The Pontiff stated that while the Church needs to “defend the earth, water, air, as gifts of the creation that belongs to all of us [... ], it must also protect the human being from his own “destruction.”
“It is necessary that there be something such as an ecology of man, understood in the proper manner,” he said.
“It is not outmoded metaphysics,” Benedict XVI affirmed, “when Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected.”"The rain forests certainly deserve our protection, but man as creature indeed deserves no less,” he said.
“What is often expressed and understood by the term ‘gender,’ is definitively resolved in the self-emancipation of the human being from creation and the Creator,” Benedict warned.
“Gender” as used in the pope’s address is broad enough to encompass anyone who doesn’t completely conform with their assigned sexual roles; including homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender and others.
Benedict XVI explained that great theologians have “qualified marriage, that is to say, the link for life between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator.”
Both Michael Bayly in his post, “And a Merry Christmas to You, Too, Papa“; and Rose Marie Berger in her post, “Pope Goes Green and Straight for Christmas,” covered Benedict’s address and subsequent hullabaloo very well and I have nothing to add to their excellent commentary.
But after reading the pope’s remarks, this quirky little thought hatched in my brain: How “natural” is God? 
Did you notice that our “Creator”–always referred to by a male pronoun–doesn’t have a wife? Is that unnatural–compared to Zeus, Odin, Vishnu and other male god kings, all of whom had wives or female consorts?
Can you think of any figure outside of the Hebrew God that doesn’t have a mate, or engage in sex with one or both sexes as opportunities present themselves? I can’t. God has a wife, except for our God.
Other oddities:
St. Joseph, honored as the patron saint of fathers, husbands and children, didn’t “know” (i.e. have carnal knowlege) of his wife, the Virgin Mary, until she gave birth. Jesus’ “father” wasn’t his biological father at all, but is held up as the icon of fatherhood.
Can you think of one person in real life–especially in Italy–who gladly sticks with his wife when she’s pregnant by someone else?
Could the virgin birth of Jesus been the result of parthenogenesis? Virgin births have been confirmed in nature in sharks, insects, and certain types of fish.
Finally, the pope’s remarks raise other questions. How natural is enforced celibacy? If God impregnanted Mary without the use of a penis, how is the miracle of artificial insemination any different?
Finally, if human beings are made in the image of God, our deity is both male and female. How does that reckon with the strict gender definitions promoted by the Vatican?
Father Marty Kurylowicz, M.Div., M.S. is a Roman Catholic priest and clincial psychotherapist.
His blog, Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, was started to bring together factual data on human sexuality, beginning with Early Childhood Psychological Development, Growing up Gay and other related issues. The blog also provides an extensive list of links to national medical and mental health hospitals, institutes, professional associations and gay resources.
Recent posts cover the research of Dr. Sidney H. Phillips, whose work is significant in understanding the kind of harm caused to very young children who grow up to be gay and the effects it has for these children in their adult lives.
His studies, as well as those of Dr. Jack Drescher, Dr. Richard Isay and others bring to light the many problems and complications that children who grow up to be gay will encounter in their adult lives, when these children are raised in a social environment that has been influenced by harsh antigay social and religious norms. 
Fr. Kurylowicz’ ministry for children growing up gay began during Holy Week of 1997, when he told his parishioners, the people of Holy Family Catholic Church in Sparta, Michigan, that he was a celibate homosexual. At that time, Fr. Kurylowicz had served as pastor for 12 years. He had struggled for years with his homosexuality.
The announcement came shortly before he took an educational leave to study psychology at the University of Michigan and Madonna University. Then-Bishop Robert Rose took no action against Kurylowicz, saying his views were in line with Catholic teaching.
Because he grew up gay himself, Fr. Kurylowicz understood the kind of harm done to children when they come under the influence of social and religious norms that convey to be “gay” is socially unacceptable and evil.
Since then Kurylowicz has spoken out to raise awareness of violence against gays and teach others homosexuality is not a choice but inboard trait. Church leaders still don’t understand that and contribute to gays’ poor self-esteem, he said.
“Kids as young as 4 or 5 know they’re different,” said Kurylowicz, “they grow up with this pervasive guilt which sabotages their growth and motivation.” 
The church needs to discuss sexuality more candidly and heed Jesus’ teachings more closely, he said. “Jesus never said one word about homosexuality,” Kurylowicz said. “He said, ‘Be careful not to hurt one of these little ones of mine.’”
I’m curling up with a good book by the fireplace this Christmas: The Unmentionable Vice: Homosexuality in the Later Medieval Period. Written by Michael Goodich, the book was published in 1979.
I have often wondered why and when the church began to focus on sodomy as a sin so detestable it crystallized in the phrase “peccatum mutum” – the mute sin, the silent sin- the secret sin. What combination of people and events came together to ignite a centuries-long persecution of homosexuals by the church? Why did it start? What incident, situation, person or persons was the catalyst for the continuing cascade of religious persecution that began in the 11th century?
Three other books dealing with medieval gay history are also on my list to read: John E. Boswell’s two books – Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Christianity From the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (1980); Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (1995); and Sodomy, Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England, 1050-1230 (2004) by William Burgwinkle.
One major aim of his work, Dr. Boswell wrote, was “to rebut the common idea that religious belief–Christian or other–has been the cause of intolerance in regard to gay people.”
Dr. Goodich seems to have drawn the opposite conclusion.
In two 1976 articles in the Journal of Homosexuality, Michael Goodich briefly sketched the close connection between heresy and sodomy in 13th century secular and ecclesiastical law. His book, The Unmentionable Vice, elaborated that sketch into a full-scale study of homosexuality in Europe from the 11th to the early 14th century. Goodich posits it is during this period the Catholic Church consolidated its moral condemnation of homosexual activity.
Although the Council of Ancyra had treated sodomy as a crime as early as 314 A.D., at the beginning of the 11th century there was no uniform legislation on the subject. It seems to be been regarded primarily as a non-Christian vice.
But thereafter more and more attention was given to sexual conformity. Two treatises devoted to the denunciation of homosexuality, Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah (1049) and Alan of Lille’s Complaint of Nature (ca 1165) were published during this period.
With the opening of the Fourth Latern Council (1215), “a more miltant, aggressive phase opened in the history of the Catholic Church,” Goodich writes. The penalities for conviction of sodomy continued to be strengthened, and the Inquisition was developed as a means of hunting down heretics and sodomites. The Domincian Order was to take an instrumental role in exterminating heresy and hunting down that “evil filth” (sodomites).
Although he was an Italian Renaissance figure, in the 1490s Dominican Girolamo Savonarola of Florence succeeded in declaring sodomy a capital offense punishable by death.
One of the interesting parts of Goodich’s book is the verbatim report of the trial for heresy and sodomy of Arnold of Verniolle in 1323. The distance between theoretical views and actual practice (sound familiar!) is shown by the apparent ease with which he met his partners.
By his own confession, Arnold committed sodomy with several young men, whose testimony is also included. Arnold was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in chains, on a diet of bread and water.
What happened to him?
San Francisco’s archbishop has appealed to Catholics on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue to be civil to each other.
“We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken. We need to stop hurling names like ‘bigot’ and ‘pervert’ at each other. And we need to stop it now,” he said. 
In a December 1, 2008 open letter that was posted on the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s website, http://sfarchdiocese.org, Archbishop George H. Niederauer said: “Tolerance, respect and trust are always two-way streets, and tolerance, respect and trust often do not include agreement or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.”
He called on “churchgoers” to “speak and act out on the truth that all people are God’s children and are unconditionally loved by God.”
“Whoever they are, and whatever their circumstances, their spiritual and pastoral rights should be respected, together with their membership in the church,” he wrote. “In that spirit, with God’s grace and much prayer, perhaps we can all move forward together.”
Do ”intrinsic moral evil” and “objective disorder” qualify as uncivil, hurtful and mean-spirited terms good Catholics should take pains to avoid?
The Secrets (Ha-Sodot) follows two young students in an all-female seminary in Safed, Israel.
Desire, awareness, a need for fulfillment, and stretching religious tradition makes things as messy for them. This is a situation many Catholic lesbians, or feminist Catholic women, for that matter, can immediately identify with. It almost always leads to a crossroads, where either choice brings loss as well as new, fertile ground.
The heroine of The Secrets is Naomi, the brilliant, beautiful, and headstrong daughter of a revered Orthodox Israeli rabbi. The film begins with Naomi entreating her father to postpone her marriage to his sour, self-righteous protege so she can pursue her religious studies at a seminary for women in Safed, the birthplace of the Kabbalah. Her distant dream is to one day become the first female Orthodox rabbi in a culture in which men smugly dismiss women’s conversations as “idle chat.”
Naomi begins to change when she forms a friendship with Michelle, one of her roommates. A sullen, chain-smoking Parisian student, Michelle’s family sent her to the seminary for disciplinary reasons. The two students fall in love. 
When Michelle visits Naomi during the Jewish holidays the two friends become lovers. Naomi, consulting sacred texts, determines there is no law against lesbian love, that homosexuality is taboo only for men, who spill their seed.
Their passionate explorations in romance and religion eventually get them expelled from the seminary. Michelle also becomes torn between Naomi, and a kind-hearted man, a klezmer clarinetist.
Near the film’s end they drift apart–Michelle toward marriage and Naomi toward declaring her independence in a society dominated by men.
“This is a movie about desire,” one rabbi commented. “Frustrated desire. Fulfilled desire.”
See the movie trailer here.
Gay clerics and those rumored to be–nuns, priests, bishops, cardinals, monks, abbots, even popes–have been with us always. Some were celibate. Others were not. Most were discreet. Others celebrated their love and loves. One of them was Alcuin of York.
Alcuin, also known as Alcuinus (Latin) and Ealhwine (Saxon) was born in York, in Northumbria, England in 735 A.D. 
At the invitation of Charlemagne, Alcuin headed the king’s school for his children at Aachen from 782 to 796. He was a leading figure at court during that time. He wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a number of poems.
Alcuin was made abbot of Saint Martin’s at Tours in 796, where he remained until his death on May 19, 804. He is considered among the most important architects of the Carolingian Renaissance.
John Boswell, in Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980) writes:
“A distinctly erotic element…is notable in the circle of friends presided over by Alcuin at the court of Charlemagne. This group included some of the most brilliant scholars of the day (Theodule of Orleans, Anglibert, Einhard, et al,), but the most erotic element subsisted principally between Alcuin and his pupils. Intimates of this circle of masculine friendship were known to each other by pet names, most of them derived from classical allusions, many from Vergil’s Ecologues..The prominence of love in Alcuin’s writings, all of which are addressed to other males, is striking…”
One of the most famous poems is addressed to a student whom Alcuin called “Daphnis” and laments the departure of another student, “Dodo,” who is referred to in the poem as their “cuckoo“. 
Boswell explains that “One expects hyperbole in poetry, but even in Alcuin’s prose correspondence there is an element which can scarcely be called anything but passionate. He wrote to a friend (a bishop…)
‘I think of your love and friendship with such sweet memories, reverend bishop, that I long for that lovely time when I may be able to clutch the neck of your sweetness with the fingers of my desires. Alas, if only it were granted to me, as it was to Habakkuk (Daniel 14:32-38), to be transported to you, how I would sink into your embraces,..how much would I cover, with tightly pressed lips, not only your eyes, ears and mouth, but also every finger and toe, not once but many a time.”
“Love has penetrated my heart with its flame,” wrote Alcuin to Arno, Bishop of Salzburg (c. 750-821). “Neither sea nor land, hills nor forest, nor even the Alps can stand in its way or hinder it from always licking at your inmost parts, good father, or from bathing your heart, my beloved, with tears…Let us seek the delights and ever-enduring realms of heaven with our whole heart, mind, and hand. The blessed hall of heaven never separates friends; a heart warmed by love always has what it loves. Therefore, father, abduct me with your prayers, I beg you (precibus rape me). Then our love will never be estranged.”
Surely, Alcuin was one of the first Catholic religious figures to blend gay sexuality and spirituality in his writing, relationships and life.
Lori and I celebrate our 21st anniversary today.
Our love and respect for each other has grown over the years and we are still very much in love.
Like other gay couples, we have have said “I Do” to each other several times. We started off with a domestic partnership in New York City on April 8, 1993; a marriage with a nondemoninational minister in Hawaii on August 27, 1998; and a wedding in Massachusetts with a justice of the peace on August 15, 2008. We celebrate all of them with a fancy dinner and nuzzling, but our biggest anniversary, even beyond our legal wedding, is the day of our first date – November 14, 1987.
The amount of “I Dos” we have experienced started to border on the humorous to both us and our families. “How many times are you going to do this,” Lori’s mother asked after our Massachusetts wedding announcement. “Until we get a toaster,” I quipped back. Lori’s younger brother and his wife and daughters surprised us with a beautiful toaster after our vows in front of the justice of the peace. 
Like other couples, we want the emotional, cultural and one day, I hope, religious affirmation of our commitment of a life together until death do us part. We also want all the legal protections and economic benefits of marriage. And yes, there is a seriousness, dignity and closeness that comes with the commitment of marriage.
On the front page of the October 30, 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal was the article, “Why Just One Wedding Isn’t Enough For Some Gay Couples.” A lot of what other couples go through resonated in our own relationship.
“Daniel McNeil and Patrick Canavan joke they’ve been married four times–to each other. The “I dos” started with a Washington, DC church wedding in 1998. Since then, the two men, both 46 years old, have chased evolving laws across the U.S. to secure a civil union in Vermont, a domestic partnership in the District of Columbia and in August, a marriage in California.”
“Mr. Canavan met Mr. McNeil, a bubbly former Franciscan brother and math teacher, in 1994 at a retreat for gay and lesbian Catholics. They moved in together and got engaged but wanted to demonstrate their commitment publicly. In October 1998, the grooms, in tuxedos, held a Catholic wedding ceremony at an Episcopal church congenial to gay marriages in Washington. The pair picked readings from the Bible and exchanged rings blessed by their Catholic priest, before family and 200 friends. They went to Spain on their honeymoon.”
“It was probably the best day of my life,” Mr. McNeil recalls, speaking of the marriage.
“When California allowed same-sex marriages in May, Messrs. McNeil and Canavan jumped at the chance. In early August they flew to San Francisco with their son and daughter for a ceremony with a few close friends in City Hall. The children acted as witnesses.”
“Mr. McNeil says the wedding felt more like a 10th anniversary. It doesn’t confer any additional rights for the couple back home in Washington. But Mr. McNeil says he now feels emboldened to check the “married” box on things like insurance and health forms.”
Lori and I are starting to say “wife” in describing each other instead of “partner” or “spouse.” It’s still a little uncomfortable, but as we say it we are getting used to it. I checked “Married” for the first time in filling out forms at a new dentist.
We are also in the process of adding each other as the beneficiary to our pensions. As unmarried partners, we would not have been able to claim this benefit. The additional monthly check will help the surviving parter to be more financially secure – peace of mind and assurance we are happy and grateful to have as we grow old together.
