A friend of mine passed this article on to me:
City Critic - Commitment, the Best a Lesbian Couple Could Do - NYTimes.com
It hit home, kind of hard.
Six months after Beloved Wife and I started dating, we got hit with heavy-duty medical shit. We waited four years to get married (religiously, not civilly). Then last fall, when one of us was getting ready for major surgery, we did the civil union thing in NJ. We feel like the mayor and everyone involved at City Hall is invested in our marriage now. But we knew that NJ hospitals don't always respect civil unions "because they're not marriages," even though the NJ Supreme Court says they're supposed to.
This story brought tears to my eyes...
Remember Karen Thonpson and Sharon Kowalski? This stuff makes me shake too.
ReplyDeleteApropos of nothing, there is a film called something like Inlaws and Outlaws full of really touching relationship stories.
One of the most memorable is an older guy whose longtime partner, a veteran, died. The partner was entitled to full military honors at his funeral but there was no way his partner could receive the flag used on his casket, something that would have been automatic if the couple could marry.
Also, I am afraid I am kind of a rabid purist about health care: even though I KNOW that equal marriage rights would help a lot of people, I persist in thinking that health care coverage should be universal, regardless of employment or relationship status! Decisionmaking about healthcare matters is hard enough for all those other reasons.....
Egads, yes, I very definitely remember Sharon and Karen.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, access to health care should have nothing to do with employment status or relationship status -- health care is a right, not a privilege. I'm with you on that.