Our Family
By Donald Snyder and Earl Beltz
Earl and I have been a couple for three and one-half years. It was love at first sight. I was married at the time to my first wife, but our marriage was over and we were destined to be friends for the rest of our lives. So, when the opportunity for Earl and I to be a loving couple presented itself, we accepted it.
It was true romance. We dated and, eventually, I moved in with Earl. In three months, I asked him to marry me. We've been married twice since our engagement, once for the whole country to witness in Washington, D.C., at the Millennium March and once at home, under God, for family and friends to witness. We had a great reception. That was two and a half years after we met.
A year later, we are together happily with a lovely home, several cats and dogs, and each other. Something is still missing. We want a family. We want a child of our own. We want to adopt a child of our own. Not just my own, not just his own, our own. That child will be our own. We will raise it together, love it together, teach it together and care for it together. It will be our child. The law must recognize our intentions, our realities, the substance of our family, our family values. It must recognize our family.
Sept. 16, 2002