Barrie Jean Borich - My Lesbian Husband: Landscapes of a Marriage

I write this on the cusp of change, or perhaps from what might be better described as another stutter of constant change. I write from a tiny hook-shaped apartment, in the wind of Lake Michigan. My spouse, Linnea, is likely working as well, at another desk, in another city. We work alone and yet together, as we have for many years, but now with greater geographical distance between us. Linneas office overlooks the downtown Minneapolis skyline and if I walk three blocks from my apartment to the lakeshore I can see the famous skyline of downtown Chicago. Thirteen years have passed since the first publication of My Lesbian Husband, and in that time everything and nothing has changed.

Heres where we are in autumn 2012. Same-sex marriage has been legal, for between a year and a decade, in six statesNew York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Vermont, as well in the District of Columbiaand after the 2012 elections it is about to be legal in Washington, Maine, and Maryland. The Defense of Marriage Act forbids federal recognition of any of these unions, but DOMA may come before the US Supreme Court soon. Many countries outside of the US sanction same-sex marriageArgentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Swedenas do Mexico City, the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, and the Coquille and Suquamish American Indian tribes. A dozen more states, including my home state of Illinois, and a couple dozen more countries perform civil unions. None of these legal havens existed at the time I wrote My Lesbian Husband. Linnea and I have never lived together in any of these places, nor among any of these people. Landscapes of a Marriage, the subtitle of My Lesbian Husband, refers to the ways our relationship to places affect how Linneas and my union is understood, by ourselves and others, but I never expected my geographic lens would become such a matter of American jurisprudence.

In Minnesotawhere Linnea and I spent twenty-five years of our life togethersame-sex marriage is far from legal, but that fact did not stop some segments of the populace from voting to try, and by a small margin fail, to amend the constitution to limit, into perpetuity, the institution of marriage in Minnesota to one man and one woman. I was riveted by election returns on the first Tuesday in November, 2012, relieved to watch the amendment fail, and grateful to all the friends and neighbors who knocked on the doors and made the phone calls that swung the vote our way. Now both the pundits and activists are speaking of this election as a sea change in terms of civil rights for LGBTQ people in this country, and I believe we might indeed be witnessing a true turning over of the waters. Yet still I wonder, what will the next round of backlash be? What havent LGBTQ communities been talking about while being forced to the defensive on the issue of marriage? Which of our Minnesota neighbors voted against marriage equality? I cant help myself from asking these questions; cynicism and expectation of injustice is a hard habit to break, even knowing that in the liberal inner-city neighborhood where Linnea and I own a home most of our neighbors consider us one of the longest married couples in the hood.

This wasnt always so. Linnea and I are both stunned by the positive, if incomplete, social change weve witnessed in our lifetimes, yet we still have not leapt to another state to renew our vows to one another under the legal umbrella of other communities laws. Rather, we keep on considering ourselves queer-marriedfor more than twenty-five years as of this writingas in married by the authority of our own choice and self-governance. We have yet to feel pulled to stage a wedding in some place where neither of us have lived, though Im tempted to ask Linnea to remarry me in New York City. A simple civil affair, followed by Chinese food and a Broadway show, sounds like our kind of shindig. So much of the white tulle and organ music convention of weddings is not to our liking. But no matter what we feel about the history and traditions of the institution of marriage, we are clear in our understanding of state constitutional amendments limiting marriage to one man and one womanthe one that failed in Minnesota as well as the those that have succeeded in thirty-one other statesas a form of codified hatred.

The reasons such measures make it to the ballotwhether as partisan wedge issues or as exercises in the maintenance of social powerare not always the same reasons they are voted into law. What cause, besides hatred, could there be for going to such lengths to limit citizenship, deny protection, discourage diversity, and constitutionalize the diminishment of so many American lives? I consider this question at a time in my life when I am acutely aware of the pain of dissolving traditions. I will never comprehend the hatred and revulsion Linneas and my life together still evokes in some circles, but I can almost understand those who simply fear change, because indeed, change hurts. I know this well because here is where Linnea and I are in November 2012. I live in Chicago. Linnea lives in Minneapolis, and the traditions of our marriage have changed beyond recognition.