Publisher's Letter: Getting Legal (Legally Married, That Is)

by Laura Matanah

Da’Jon hugged Sarah, ran upstairs and hugged me, and then hugged me again. Tajah leapt off the bus and into our arms. “The whole school was celebrating,” she said. “As soon as we heard the news, Adam ran over and hugged me. I was surprised for a minute, ’cause we don’t hang out all that much.” Marriage equality had been signed into law in Minnesota.

My kids and Adam, who also comes from an LGBT-headed family, started high school this year. They grew up during the marriage wars. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned DOMA and Prop 8 they were glad, but the recent passage of marriage equality in Minnesota meant much more to them. Justice Kennedy’s comment that DOMA “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples” rang true, acknowledging the importance of marriage to many kids growing up in our families. In my family, we all felt the lack of recognition of our marriage to be insulting.

Justice Kennedy continued, “The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Our kids, and I believe most kids from LGBT-headed homes, always understood the integrity of our family. The difficulty was in feeling they had to defend its integrity to others. I believe the passage of marriage equality relieves my kids of that burden.

My wife, Sarah, and I were religiously married under the care of our Quaker meeting fifteen years ago. We’d been together nine years by then, and even separated for a time. We knew that sustaining a relationship isn’t always easy. We wanted to ground our relationship in Spirit and community. This month, our marriage will become legally recognized in Minnesota and by the U.S. government. There are ways in which I’m thrilled, and in some ways it feels like a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, the passage of marriage equality makes me feel safer in my day-to-day life. We took a family trip to the beach to celebrate Sarah’s birthday, and I noticed how much more relaxed I felt to walk along holding hands. We now have gained an estimated 7,000 rights associated with legal marriage in the course of four months. On the other hand, there’s something a little disorienting about going from 0 to 7,000, especially when many of your friends won’t get any new rights. I have plenty of single and not-going-to-marry-for-a-variety-of-reasons queer friends who don’t personally benefit in the ways I do. I’m aware that many kids in our community come from complex blended families that still have little legal recognition. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which has been central in making voting accessible to all U.S. citizens, was gutted by the same court in another decision the same week. Voting restrictions will affect many queer people, our families and friends, and our community. So while we’re all celebrating, the celebration feels a little bittersweet.

I believe one of the biggest gains from marriage equality can be a profound shift in the public’s ideas about LGBT folks and children. To be seen as we are, as capable people and family members, as citizens who contribute to our communities, is an enormous shift in public perception. It will have a deep impact on all children and help them feel comfortable with adults and youth who are LGBT and a variety of family structures. As we make the change, I believe Rainbow Rumpus’s stories will become even more important to kids in and outside of LGBT-headed families, playing a key role in helping everyone to tell new stories of inclusion.