It is inevitably a political act, for men, for women, regardless of whether they are marrying someone of the same sex or the opposite sex. It is a political act for economic reasons, and, for gay people, it has been a political act since the first gay person asked for a marriage license and was turned down. County clerks were dispensing licenses to some citizens and not to others,which is essentially political. For gay people to get married today, DOMA had to be overturned by the US Supreme Court, and laws had to be passed or overturned in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
But it is more than that. My partner, C, and I have been together for twenty-three years. We have a good relationship. We don’t argue with one another. We treat each other with respect. We find it easy to give in to each other. We love one another. I have often wondered how getting married would make our relationship different from what it has been. I didn’t want to do anything that would make our relationship less than it has been.
Since the late winter, my partner and I have been planning to marry. Last Saturday, September 28, on Race Point beach in Provincetown, on a perfect day—low seventies, cloudless sky—we were married, surrounded by his father and stepmother, by his brother and his wife and their children, by my brother and his wife and by my niece and her guest and my nephews and their wives, by C’s uncle and aunt, their son and several of C’s cousins, by my children and their children, by a man and his wife whom I’ve known for 45 years, by a neighborhood lady and her husband, and by our friends. I walked through the dunes from the parking lot at Race Point beach, along the path with the blue mesh, and when I reached the top of the dune and could see the vast drama of Race Point beach below me, under that intense cloudless blue sky, I could see gathered over to my left around a tall rainbow flag all of the good people we had asked to join us, waiting. Someone was running toward me across the sand. As she got closer, I could see it was one of our granddaughters, followed by another granddaughter, and her mother, all of them beautiful.
Then I knew the difference between what C and I had done for the last twenty-three years and what we were about to embark on. Our relationship has been essentially private. This was going to be a relationship embedded in a community of people who cared about us—our relatives and our friends—and drawing support and strength from being surrounded by them, but free, still free. These people love us as we are.
I hugged my granddaughter and her sister and my daughter, and we walked down across the sand toward the flag and the crowd and C, who were waiting for us to arrive, so he and I could marry. We could have stayed the way we were. It was good, C and me, loving each other. But this is good too. Different, but good. C and me and everybody around the rainbow flag on Race Point beach on Saturday, under a cloudless sky.