Tears of relief, tears of despair

We attended a good friend's wedding in the summer
of 2006, in the midst of Congressional hearings
that dehumanized us, just before they passed DOMA.
I was happy for my friend, but bitter, as it felt like
salt in the wound. That was the last legal wedding I
attended until same-sex couples could marry.

Just months after Sandy and I began our relationship, Congress passed DOMA in the summer of 1996. I'm not self-important enough to think that legislators were threatened specifically by our relationship, of course. But it was a slap in the face. We were jubilant about our new relationship just as it was condemned nationally. It was hard not to take it personally.

Here's a little background. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) comprises three sections: Section 1 just says the act can be called by a shorter name (no one cares about that); Section 2 says that states don't have to recognize other states' marriages if they're between people of the same sex; Section 3 says that the federal government can't recognize same-sex marriages.

Today's decision struck down Section 3, so now legally married same-sex couples can receive federal benefits. There are 1,100 or more of those benefits, many having to do with taxation, immigration, and Social Security. But they include things people don't talk about as much, too, like not having to testify against your spouse. Not a benefit most of us have to use, but for those who do, it's critical.

Section 2 wasn't challenged in the Windsor case, so it remains standing for now. That means that those of us fortunate enough to live in states that issue licenses to same-sex couples now have full federal rights, as long as we stay in our home states. But other states still won't have to recognize our marriages, so it remains risky for such couples to travel to other parts of the country. And it's unclear how many of the federal benefits will be available to people who marry in one state but live in another.

This is all by way of context. What's prompting me to write is my own response to the decision.

I'd been dreading it. In part, because I was afraid the Court would break my heart, the way the Washington State Supreme Court broke our hearts in 2006. But I was pretty sure I knew how the Windsor (DOMA) and Perry (Prop 8) cases would go; most everyone predicted today's decisions accurately. It was my own reaction that I couldn't predict.

When our state legislature passed marriage equality in early 2012, I felt despair amidst my feelings of joy. When we approved Referendum 74, putting that marriage bill into law last November, I felt relief but also, again, despair, and I was surprised that it also seemed so anti-climactic. And so this morning, when I peeked at the computer to see how the decisions fell, I probably shouldn't have been so surprised by my response.

My very first reaction was relief. I felt tension drain from my entire body, and my first tears were of joy. But almost within seconds, I was keening.

The Windsor decision conveys real, tangible benefits, but it also affords dignity and recognizes the humanity of a huge swath of people who have been historically despised and discounted. Sandy bore the burden of homophobia as much as any of us, and I want desperately for her to have had the opportunity to feel that burden lifted in part by this acknowledgment of our relationship as legitimate and valuable. She deserved that. She still does.

My sobbing ebbed as I gradually moved from viewing the decisions from a place of self-interest to recognizing the amazing day this is for our entire country. And not just for LGBT folks. Like many people, when I think about what the United States means, those moments that my chest swells with patriotism, I think of the Civil Rights Movement and the great strides we made in affirming the equality of people who had been grievously wronged. I think of women gaining the right to vote nearly a hundred years ago, following a long and contentious effort to be recognized as full persons. I think of everything we've done as a country to move closer to living up to our ideals, to correct the wrongs that have been perpetuated historically, and to, yes, become a more perfect union. Today's Supreme Court decision was one of those moments, and that's definitely worth celebrating.

I know Sandy's aware of the decision today, and I know she must be pleased by it. But I don't know whether she feels relief and a sense of affirmation, or if she'd left those burdens behind when she died. Either way, I wish we'd had this moment while she was here, alive, and could drink it in. If she had to die, I wish she'd died knowing that our marriage was legal and fully recognized, that I would have been treated as a spouse instead of a stranger when it came to Social Security and retirement account rollovers and countless other little things that came up.

But then, as we move through the second anniversaries of the last few weeks of her life, I find myself wishing a lot of things.

(Two years ago today was Pride Sunday. We were at the hospital, but she didn't have radiation that day and she felt a bit better, was excited about going home the next day. We were still on a high after the New York state legislature had passed a marriage bill at the end of that week. Sandy wanted us to go to New York to marry as soon as it went into effect, never imagining that she would be dead before that happened.)