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03 Nov 2008 10:37 am

"An Ordinary, Boring, Un-notable Married Life With The Person I Love"

An American expat in Canada blogs about marriage equality:

The prospect of legal marriage wasn't the only reason or even the main reason that we emigrated, but we've both been surprised at the depth of the difference we feel. It's a difference that makes it possible for me to shrug off the opinions of sweet old ladies on the street and even, to some extent, the prejudices of my child's teacher, because-- and here's the part I didn't think about much-- here, we are not different. We're not special, we're not the subject of battles over court decisions and legislative changes. We don't have to go to lawyers to make special arrangements and get special papers written up. We don't have to qualify anything when insurance companies and mortgage brokers and doctors ask for our marital status. We're married, period. The law is on our side.

Let me repeat that: the law is on our side.

This is a new concept for me, and not one I'd given much consideration before our move. After all, in Seattle we lived in a liberal bubble of tolerance and acceptance, taking for granted that under almost all circumstances-- except legal ones-- we'd be treated the same as our straight friends and neighbors. And just about always, we were.

But a bubble is just what it was. Underneath it all, recognition of our relationship was based on nothing but the good graces of our friends and relations. And while those good graces were pleasant and much appreciated, they still left us hugely vulnerable in the face of all the vicissitudes and disasters that could happen to any family. We were lucky that none of those happened to us. And we took for granted that dependence on luck and good grace, and the slight anxiety it brought with it.

Now, we don't have that any more. It's not just that we consider ourselves married, and our families consider us married, and our friends and neighbors and bosses and dentists consider us married: now, the Province of British Columbia and the Nation of Canada consider us married, too. And that has made all the difference.

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