Representative Jay Inslee and our family

Act I: Getting There
Act II: You Again, Barney Frank?

It’s been over a week since we met with Representative Inslee, and some of you are probably wondering why it’s taken us so long to blog about it. Let me assure you: it’s not because we haven’t been thinking about it. There have been logistical problems in finishing the story, like the awful Internet connection I’m using as I write this. And the election happened.

Aside: speaking of the election, though the anti-domestic partnership–um–people have not conceded, we won in Washington State. Despite the small margin, we are elated. No, elated doesn’t cover it. We are overjoyed, thankful, and humbled by the people of Washington for their history-making vote.

When Inslee walked in, the first thing he did, as he folded his long body into a chair that had seemed perfectly adequate in size before he sat in it, was compliment Frances. That’s a way to win a mom’s favor, for sure. He said he had a grandson who was ten months old, and gestured to the pictures. I told him I was just asking about his grandson. Brody, your grandpa practically offered your hand in marriage to our little Frances, so grow up to be a good guy, OK?

Looking back on it now, I can see the strategy Inslee was using when he began the real conversation with us: start with a point of agreement. “What do you think of Referendum 71?” he asked.

“Well, we wish it had never happened in the first place, but we think it will pass,” I said. Everyone was still in the room, and I feel a little bad that with Inslee there, his legislative assistant, David, kind of faded into the background.

“My wife and I made a donation to the campaign,” he said. “And I sent out an e-mail in support of it–or at least I think I did–if not, I will.”

It must be interesting to have no idea if you’ve sent an e-mail or not. That’s not a criticism. I can only imagine having so much to do and so many people helping you get it done that you have no idea which steps you’ve completed and which ones you haven’t.

He said he’d been told we drove to DC to meet with him. That wasn’t exactly true, but it was a good way to up the importance of our visit, so I was fine with the misunderstanding. I did tell him the real purpose of our trip, though.

And then we talked about the Respect for Marriage Act. We brought up a couple of our talking points. Ami mentioned taxes, and I threw in a great phrase I’d picked up on the DC Marriage Equality website: “the poor man’s lawyer.” I explained to Inslee that to accomplish what marriage does, we have to pay a lawyer to write documents to even come close to the protections of marriage.

“The poor man’s lawyer,” he said. “I like that.”

We had done some research, as I mentioned. We were surprised to learn that the Respect for Marriage Act did not actually include the portability of our marriage. From the HRC summary of the bill: “The bill does not require states that have not yet enacted legal protections for same-sex couples to recognize a marriage.  Nor does it obligate any person, state, locality, or religious organization to celebrate or license a marriage between two persons of the same sex.  This legislation only requires the federal government to equally apply its policy of looking to the states in determining what legal relationships are eligible for federal benefits.” The bill is a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and given that some states have now affirmed our right to marry, the bulk of DOMA seems to be that you can’t force states to recognize that marriage. It was curious to us that it was not in the bill.

Then he asked us, if a bill were to pass to give us all of the federal rights and benefits of marriage, would we have the same rights as he and his wife?

I said yes, except for full faith and credit. Full faith and credit is the nickname given to Article VI, Section I of the U.S. Constitution–“public acts, records, and judicial proceedings” are recognized in all other states, not just the one in which they occurred.

“Well, I talked to [one of the main co-sponsors, either Nadler or Polis], and asked him about the full faith and credit part of the bill. He said not to worry about that.” Inslee said. “But that part is unenforceable. And I can’t sign on to something that isn’t legal.”

Here’s where I should have said that the law didn’t include marriage portability. But there were two things going on. One was that I was kind of dumbstruck–if you know me, you know that’s not a common occurrence–by talking directly to our Representative. The other was that given that he said he’d talked to one of the co-sponsors about it, maybe my information was incorrect. So I said nothing.

“Do you have the legal information on that?” He asked. Of course, we didn’t. “Nevermind. I’ll get the legal briefs from HRC.”

“I can contact them and ask them to send the briefs to you,” I offered.

“No, no, we’ll take care of that. That’s not your responsibility.” Attention, HRC, if you’re reading this, please make sure that Jay Inslee has those legal briefs, whether he asks for them or not.

And with that, the purpose of our visit was pretty much brushed aside. He needed more information. We didn’t have it. Shelved.

Throughout the meeting, he used the term “federal rights and benefits” a lot of times. Though he never said so, it seemed that he would co-sponsor a bill that gave us those “federal rights and benefits,” but not necessarily one that allowed us to marry.

Then guess who came up again. Yep, Barney Frank. He hadn’t heard my rather pointed rejection of the Barney Frank Excuse, as poor David had, but Inslee moved on when I replied that Frank’s position on the Respect for Marriage Act was very unpopular in the queer community. I told him to Google it. The word queer made him squint a little.

And then we were swept up into the land of agreement. We should all have the same rights, federally. Inslee’s a talker, and so am I, so we wound up speaking at the same time on occasion, which would horrify some people as incredibly rude. I’m from New York City, however, where the rules around turn-taking in speech are very different. So if Mr. Inslee was offended by my simultaneous chatter, I apologize.

We took a picture, and were all set to go. But I felt like I’d been talked out of my marriage. It was a non-sequitur, and not well-put, but I said, “Before we go, I just want to put in a plug for marriage. Even if we have all the rights of marriage, there are emotional and societal reasons that marriage equality is important.” I held out my hand toward Frances. “She’s going to understand the concept of marriage long before she’ll understand what a domestic partnership is.”

“So it’s not just the poor man’s lawyer, is it?” He said.

“No,” I answered.

And with that, our meeting was over.

I have, in the time since our meeting, thought about what I would have said about why marriage equality was the goal, not merely a federally recognized domestic partnership or civil union. It’s a topic for another post, though, and even within our family there is some degree of disagreement. Ami doesn’t care what we call it. I do. I’m trying to win her over to my side, but as of now we’re divided on the issue. And as we saw in Washington State with the first-ever passage of a pro-same-sex partnership bill by a popular vote, there are good reasons for shelving marriage, since it gets everyone so upset. For now.

If you want to hear some of those reasons, Jeanne Cordova does a good job of outlining them in her post, “What the Maine Vote Tells Us.”

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But nearly 22%, 192 people, voted to uphold the law. Doesn’t sound like much, it’s true. How about this number? 219,897–that’s the number of people who voted to approve R-71 in the yellow counties, the ones like Garfield County, in which a majority of voters rejected R-71.

In Washington, as is the case in many other states in which one area’s population is massive and the rest of the state’s just isn’t, the Puget Sound area of Western Washington and its left-leaning voters usually win statewide elections. This creates a lot of bitterness in the eastern part of the state, and I guess I can understand why. It would suck to feel like your vote didn’t count.

And in case I didn’t remind you yet today, we are winning in Washington. Approve R-71 holds its lead. Sorry, Eastern WA (not really).

219,897. That’s 37% of the current count of votes in favor of R-71. That’s 219,897 people in the more conservative areas of Washington who didn’t succumb to the pressure of their neighbors to reject the rights of same-sex couples. As much as it mattered that King County and other Puget Sound residents sent in their ballots this year to put R-71 over the top, it mattered that these people did, too. I want to thank each one of those 219,897 people, but I especially want to thank the 192 Approve voters in Garfield County. You are my heroes of the day.

A few days ago we were in Clayton, Georgia, population 2019. We drove up from our campsite at Talullah Gorge State Park about 10 miles south to visit Wendy’s. No, it wasn’t because we wanted a Frosty. Wendy’s is one of the few places in Clayton, Georgia that has free WiFi for its guests, an amenity usually missing from state park campgrounds.

We were there for about a half hour when another WiFi user, a guy, came in and sat across from us, next to the only visible outlet in the place. We exchanged pleasantries, and almost immediately my gaydar went off. No, Ruby. This is small-town Georgia.

We started talking with him about Frances, and several times he dropped hints about his sexual orientation. Still I argued with myself. What were the odds? We were nearly the only people in the place. But when he said, “Well, I’m not going to have children unless they figure out a way for men to give birth,” I had to admit it: this guy was gay.

We spent hours in that Wendy’s, talking to Brandon and eventually his friend Kristen, a straight ally. We talked about the difficulty of being out and gay in a small town, worrying about your safety. We agreed that the recently-passed federal hate crimes law was a good thing.

Then Brandon and Kristen told us about other gay people in the area. There was a gay couple who owned a restaurant that we could see through the window from where we sat. Down the road was a bar owned by a lesbian couple, an LGBT hangout. And nearby, Brandon told us proudly, was an all-LGBT church. Just over the border in North Carolina, he said, was a small town that had one of the highest per capita gay populations in the country.

We were kind of floored by this. I think I used to believe that part of the coming out process for everyone who wasn’t born in a big liberal city was to move to one. And maybe that’s usually true. But some people stay, or come back. And they have friends.

In Garfield County, Washington, they have 192 friends. Brave, wonderful friends who vote with their hearts to protect our rights throughout the state of Washington.

*Note: the numbers change frequently as remaining votes are counted. All numbers quoted are as of 6:39 a.m. PST on 11/5.

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Washington's Referendum 71 results as of the morning after the election

It’s too early to say for sure, but it looks like the first ever win for a pro-gay initiative on a state ballot. And it’s our state, Washington, that will claim it. The voter-approved law, Senate Bill 5688, will change Washington’s definition of spouse–in every law in which it appears–to include registered domestic partners. For that reason, it’s nicknamed the “everything-but-marriage” law.

We don’t know for sure, though, because too many ballots are still pending. Washington became an all-vote-by-mail state this year, and ballots had to be postmarked, not received, by November 3.

Dawn also finds us at status quo for same-sex marriage on the ballot. Maine, where the results are essentially final, saw a “Yes” answer for Question 1, the challenge to their legislature- and governor-approved law granting same-sex couples marriage rights. That means the law allowing people like us to marry will never take effect.

I had a similar personal experience last night to my experience watching election returns in 2008: there was elation (R-71, Obama) and heartbreak (Question 1, Prop 8).

The Seattle P-I has a summary of what will change when the law in Washington goes into effect:

Some rights and responsibilities that would be extended to gay and lesbian families under the latest legislation are:

Workers’ compensation coverage.

The right to use sick leave to care for a spouse.

Victims’ rights, including the right to receive notifications and benefits allowances. Business succession rights.

Legal process rights, such as the ability to sign certain documents, the requirement to join in certain petitions, rights to cause of action, and ability to transfer licenses without charge.

The right to wages and benefits when a spouse is injured, and to unpaid wages upon death of spouse.

The right to unemployment and disability insurance benefits disability insurance issues

Insurance rights, including rights under group policies, policy rights after death of spouse, conversion rights, and continuing coverage rights.

One they don’t mention concerns our family directly. We have been waiting for this legislation to finally take effect so Ami can adopt Frances without the insult and expense of a home visit by a social worker. Originally it was scheduled to take effect shortly after she was born, so it wasn’t much of a wait. And we didn’t really believe that Referendum 71 would wind up on the ballot. So we waited, and waited. We will be thrilled to celebrate Ami’s adoption of Frances as soon as this law takes effect.

In today’s Seattle Times, Danny Westneat wrote:

Gays can’t win at the ballot box.

That has always been the harsh reality. Put the subject of equality for gays and lesbians to a vote of the people — practically any people, in states from deep red to dark blue — and the people have always said: “No. Not here. Not yet.”

Until — it appears — now. Right here.

There’s a week’s worth of ballot-counting remaining in an election everyone is saying is too-close-to-call. But it appears Washington state will be the first in America to approve a gay-equality measure not by court fiat or legislative action, but by the direct will of the people.

Let’s ignore for the moment the outrageous inequity of other people voting on your personal rights. Because no matter how very wrong it is, it’s happened again and again in this country, in state after state. I don’t believe it’s right to vote on this issue, even when we win.

Let’s do a tiny dance of joy in praise of the voters of Washington. Not so big, because our victory is very mixed–and unsure. Maybe a little wiggle in your chair would suffice.

Then let’s personify Maine for a moment, and ask him a few pointed questions:

1. What happened to your young voters, who probably support equal rights for all?
2. Yes to medical marijuana, but no to same-sex marriage? Yes to late-term abortions, but no to same-sex marriage? I’m confused about you, Maine. Civil liberties get approval, but so does discrimination. I’m not sure how to read that, or whether to invite you to my cocktail party. You’ll probably be a load of laughs, but you won’t call me in the morning.
3. You’re not going to convince us not to be homos. So why not impose your traditional values by allowing us fair access to the hetero-normative marriage we are forced to beg you for?
4. Do you really think that we’ll still remember you tomorrow as the first to recycle?
5. For a state that so relies on tourism, how do you think this will effect your bottom line? Not smart, Maine. The leaves change color in Massachusetts and Vermont, too. Next year, we’ll take our veils, our tuxes, and our fat gay dollar there, instead.

Yes, today I’m angry with Maine.

But mark my words, National Organization for Marriage, Faith and Freedom Network, Yes on 1, the Vatican, and the LDS Church: when we win in Washington, it will be the first victory of many.

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At the post office mailing our ballots!

Today we mailed out ballots from Pennsylvania. This is us at the post office, excited to vote to approve R-71.

In Maine, we met a Californian at the No on 1 campaign office. He said he was more worried about Washington and R-71 than he was about Maine and Question 1. I listened, and I didn’t disagree out loud. Maybe I got a little scared for a day or so. But in my heart I know Washington will do the right thing.

Do the right thing, Washington! Please!

Why should you Approve R-71? Because families like ours will benefit. There will be financial benefits, like we won’t get fired if we have to take time off from work to care for one another if one of us gets sick. And like not having to pay a social worker to come to our house to evaluate Ami’s fitness to adopt the daughter she’s been caring for since before conception.

Did I mention it’s the right thing to do?

If the heartbreak we experienced at the election results in California last year when Prop 8 passed is any indication, we will be ecstatic if the voters in our state uphold our rights. Even if 49% of the people who live in Washington believe we are not entitled to the rights and responsibilities that married couples have, that 51%–that a majority–welcomes us into the adult world is edifying. No, it shouldn’t have to happen in the first place. No, people should never have to or get to vote to say whether some group or other deserves (almost) equality. But since we have to, since it’s gone the other way so very many times in our country, it will be incredibly meaningful and triumphant when it goes our way.

You hear me Washington? I didn’t say if. I said when. Make us proud. Do it for Frances.

Tomorrow we head back to Washington, D.C., where we will meet with our Representative in the House, Jay Inslee. Send us all your good gay juju at 1 p.m. EDT.

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I would say more, but it’s not quite funny yet. Let’s have some laws, shall we?

New York

• New York, by statute, does not issue licenses to same-sex couples. In 2004, the mayor of New Paltz, NY, Jason West, decided to preside over the marriages of about two dozen same-sex couples. He was charged with 19 violations of New York’s Domestic Relations Law. [via California Yankee] The State Attorney General ordered the marriages to stop, and in 2006, the state court decided, in Hernandez v. Robles, that it was not a violation of the state constitution to deny licenses to same-sex couples. In 2008 there was a ruling that same-sex marriages performed outside of New York were entitled to legal recognition in New York. The appeals court decided unanimously not to review the case, and to date same-sex marriages from other states (like ours) are recognized in New York. In addition, there is no domestic partner registry in New York, but same-sex partners are allowed to visit each other in the hospital and are given priority for the disposing of each other’s remains.
• Same-sex partners who are not married are allowed to make medical decisions for one another in the case of an incapacitated partner, as a close friend. Others, like parents and adult children, are given priority. A health care proxy may be assigned to a partner if the proxy is named in writing and signed by the individual and two adult witnesses.
• Unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, and married same-sex partners may adopt in New York. A 2002 decision in the courts affirmed the rights of same-sex couples to adopt. In 1995 a court in NY decided that same-sex co-parents could adopt each other’s biological children.
• There is no New York law concerning issuing of new birth certificates upon sexual reassignment surgery, but in practice new certificates are granted.
• New York hate crimes law specifically mentions sexual orientation, but not gender identity.
• Some gender identity discrimination cases have been pursued in New York on the basis of sex, but there is no specific prohibition against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There is protection for sexual orientation.
• School violence is generally prohibited, but there are no specific protections for kids on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. [via HRC unless otherwise specified]

New Jersey

• New Jersey does not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but they have civil unions which confer all of the same state rights as married couples. This was due to a 2006 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that said it was unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the rights and responsibilities of marriage. There is no prohibition against recognizing same-sex marriages from other states, but no affirmation of the recognition, either.
• Civil union partners have the same rights as married couples in New Jersey concerning health care visitation, decision making, etc. Partners who have not had a civil union can name each other through health care advance directives, which must be signed and witnessed by two adults.
• Unmarried LGBT people may adopt in New Jersey. Couples can adopt jointly, and adopt each other’s children.
• New Jersey will issue a new birth certificate with a physician’s affidavit regarding sex change, and proof of name change.
• Hate crimes laws in New Jersey protect people on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.
• You may not discriminate in New Jersey on the basis of either sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Safe schools laws in New Jersey also protect on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Not bad, New Jersey, not bad.

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