Of the things in my life that has given me lasting pride and pleasure, nothing can compare with my 33 year relationship with Keith McCullar. As we’ve quietly got on with our lives, we’ve reluctantly borne the brunt of the discriminatory treatment all gay men endure, including that heretofore sanctioned by the federal government. It makes me sick to hear those who bleat about the sanctity of ‘traditional’ marriage, a mindset, it appears, framed by having watched ‘Father of the Bride’- the 1950 version, with Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and a radiantly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. What all of this ignores, of course, is the fact that institutional marriage in the United States is not much more than 200 years old, and has much, much more to do with preserving property rights than it does anything to do with a supposed adherence to some scriptural precept. With all that, we needn’t go down the road of biblical literalism on any subject, as those who make strenuous arguments citing chapter and verse can only do so whilst ignoring some of the other Levitican admonitions and truly horrific proscriptions also contained therein.
After word came down yesterday, both Keith and I received a number of phone calls from friends asking what it was we planned to do. The fact is, anything we can do to ameliorate the financial hardship wrought by the discriminatory treatment we’ve experienced during the tenure of our relationship we will do as soon as the courts allow. We’ve been fortunate, the two of us, both with backgrounds in finance to have the knowledge and experience to so order our financial as well as our personal lives- for instance funding life insurances to pay estate taxes on jointly acquired property that in marriage would be within a spousal exemption and always maintaining an up-to-date durable power of attorney for healthcare- mindful, though, these and many other maneuverings cost us lots of time and money.
But that’s been the easy part. The harder portion has been the sense of being looked at down the nose by the larger world we inhabit, including one’s own family, and being relegated to the role of the favorite uncle- or more likely, the rich uncle, that takes everyone out to dinner and pays the bill- he has more money, you see, because he has no children to support, and anyway, his questionable moral status obliges him to pay, and pay again and again, in some sort of vague expiation. And Keith? Well, of course, his status is never really defined, though he’s been a constant fixture for decades. It’s interesting- we attended a family wedding not so long ago, and Keith astutely observed that the new ‘traditional’ marital partner would, after a 30 minute ceremony, be immediately embraced within the bosom of the family, where he, after 3 decades, was still only just tolerated. It might be no surprise, then, that neither of our families said anything to us about the Supreme Court decisions yesterday.
Because we’ve been able to get along with our lives, and overall life has been good to us- a wonderful quality of life, and spared the horrors of HIV that decimated our circle of friends- we’ve not become radicalized. Perhaps we should have done, but for the moment, the prospect of being less victimized is emotionally nearly euphoric. I hope, though, with sanctions lifting and huge queues forming outside registry offices, will come an eventual understanding that, like everyone else, we’re trying to get on in life with a partner we love.