Write to Marry: Our Illegal Marriage

This blog post is an effort to raise awareness and rally around LGBT families in California as same sex marriage goes up for a vote. Here's hoping that people vote NO on Prop 8 and that our sister state to the south continues to sanction same sex marriages!

My partner and I were married on March 4, 2004, (march forth!) in our home state of Oregon. At that time, Multnomah County Commissioners (Portland) deemed it unconstitutional to deny lesbian and gay couples marriage licenses and so, same sex couples were granted marriages for a short time. We were one of 3,000 couples to be married in Oregon. Sadly, the following November, Oregon voters passed an amendment to the constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. We received a refund of our $60.00 license fee and still have a copy of our defunct marriage certificate... a keepsake of sorts reminding us of the historic moment.

On February 1, 2008, Oregon's Domestic Partnership Law went into effect, legalizing Domestic Partnerships . Domestic partnership in Oregon provides my family with some of the rights and protections otherwise afforded by marriage. These rights are outlined by Basic Rights Oregon, a state organization "committed to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity". I appreciate all of the hard work done by the staff and volunteers as they represented the LGBT community throughout the legislative process, ultimately contributing to our state's passing of domestic partner legislation. We same sex couples living in domestically partnered bliss, exist in a separate (and unequal) category and are afforded no recognition on a Federal level. While Oregon's domestic partnership law remains a gain to be celebrated, legalizing same sex marriage in the state of California would be a wonderful step toward equality for all of us whether we reside within state boundaries or beyond.