Shouldn't Marriage Depend on Love?
By Catherine
My wife and I fell in love in September 1995. We had a ceremony on May 10, 1997, in front of 100 of our family members and closest friends. We hired a lawyer to draw up contracts, wills, living wills and durable powers of attorney to protect our relationship and our rights.
In October 1997, we bought a house together. My partner, Kari, gave birth to Elisabetta, our beautiful daughter, on June 30, 2000. Two years later, on June 12, I gave birth to our second daughter, Francis Eileen. A good friend was the donor for both of our children. During our pregnancies, we hired a lawyer and, using the Uniform Parentage Act, a model law designed to help determine parentage, the non-biological mother became the legal parent of the soon-to-be born child and listed on the birth certificate.
To help with a refinance of our home, we switched the house from both our names to only mine. As a result, our real estate transfer taxes went up. The state saw the transfer as a gift from one single person to another.
To secure rights that opposite-sex couples enjoy quite easily as the result of a marriage, we have had to pay a tidy sum of money in legal fees. Had we been allowed to marry, we would not need contracts, wills, etc., to protect our spouse in the event of death or breakup. If we were legally married and our spouse became pregnant by artificial insemination, we would automatically be the legal parent of the child without having to ask a judge for that right. And the change of name on the deed of our house wouldn’t have had an impact on our property taxes.
There are countless smaller things that we have endured because we are not legally married, but it would take pages upon pages to list all those. In the end, shouldn’t marriage be limited only by love, not the government?
Jan. 10, 2003