American Family and Marriage
by Jeri Berc and Roni Posner (Washington, D.C.)
We grew up with very similar values. The central value, for both of us, always, was family, created by marriage. We learned that marriage was the means to an enduring relationship of love within which you could share life, its happiness, as well as sorrow, struggle and all of its beauty. The value we placed on marriage did not change when we each discovered our lesbian identities as young adults. We both searched for such a relationship throughout our lives, until we found each other in our mid-30s.
When we first met, we both knew we had found our mate. We decided to marry, and worked with our Congregation Bet Mishpachah, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender synagogue of Washington, D.C., to establish a commitment policy that would enable us to have the traditional Jewish wedding we both always expected we would one day enjoy. Our engagement lasted for one and a half years, the time it took to finalize the synagogue policy and then to wait another few months so that we could be "June brides" (June 18, 1988). Through the religious commitment service, "Kiddushin," we signed a traditional wedding contract ("kituba") and other legal papers to protect and provide for each other.
It was a beautiful service, attended by 120 friends, family members and leaders of our congregation. We are recognized in our faith, and in our community, as a married, committed couple, a model for others who wish to create such a relationship within our community. And we have been living happily ever after, over these past 15 years...
...except for the fact that we lack the legal benefits, rights and protections afforded to all legally married couples in this country. Despite the fact that we filed domestic partnership papers in the District of Columbia as soon as we could, Jeri is unable to provide the same family health care benefits for Roni that any of her colleagues in the federal government are able to provide to their spouses. If one of us, for some reason, is hospitalized at any time, we might be denied access to each other. This horrific hospital policy commonly affects same-sex couples, often with extremely dire consequences. This denial of access would be an unacceptable outrage to any married couple, as it is to us, but one that we fear we may one day have to endure here in this country.
We don't need a civil union to bless our marriage, since that has already been done in our religious community. But we do need and deserve all of the civil rights important to and enjoyed by everyone else in our society who chose to marry. We deserve the same right to share our benefits, to be able to provide for each other in sickness and in health, as well as in death. We should not have to bear any greater financial risk, cost or tax burden, under any circumstances, than any other married couple in this country. We deserve the same respect for our relationship that every other married couple expects and receives in this country, dedicated to equal protection and equal rights, under the law.
We strongly urge the policy leaders of this nation to recognize the love and official, binding commitment established between any two adult, united Americans — and to ensure equal rights to all of those couples, as promised by the law of this great land.