Thursday, December 11, 2008

As Many Times As It Takes

Hey, I'm engaged again!... for the fourth time (if I'm counting right :-))... to the same guy.

Sure, as a Utahn it may be expected of me to have 4 to zip marriage to divorce record, but we may be one of the first here to do it without polygamy. (I wonder, is there a world record we could apply for?)

I know, I know. Our last marriage, in California, might still be legal come Summer, and the court could rule taking rights from a certain minority group is a violation of and revision of their constitution's equal rights guarantees and thus Proposition 8 should not have been up to popular vote according to law. I hope that's the case, but it may not be and I just don't feel like I can be comfortable without having this ability to protect my home somewhere in the US, or know where I can move our family to have it quickly, or be ready for when the federal government repeals DOMA.

Having that for my family last summer, I cannot get used to not having it now; stepping back hurts more after the step forward. I'm still periodically having dreams about protecting them and I hope getting back to the legal standing we had before Prop 8 will help with that.

Though, thank goodness, my family-defence dreams are now just getting silly; I can wake from them with a laugh rather than heart-pounding stress. I had one the other night where I was defending them from a terminator robot (a subconscious comment on Schwarzenegger's veto of CA marriage rights :-)?), and last night I dreamed we were robbed, and it had something to do with zombies. Clearly it's still weighing on my mind, but at least it's more action/adventure than tragedy. I mean, I can wake up and laugh at protecting my home from zombies, but I'll still be stressed from a dream about fighting people saying how horrible it would be for our children to even talk about their family at school. The two opponents may have some similarities ;-), but one opponent doesn't disappear at waking up.

Anyway, we'll be headed to pioneer territory, to Providence Town Ma late in the summer. We'll be sharing a condo on the beach with a couple other gay and lesbian parents and their kids and it should be a lot of fun, even if we won't need to be re-re-re-wedded... *sigh*... But if we do need to, we'll have one more legal document protecting at least a fraction of our rights to equal treatment, in a fraction of our country, and holding us to a fraction of our responsibilities. It's something. One more marriage license added to our bitter-sweet collection is better than nothing.

Anyway, as they always say, fourth time's the charm, right?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool, you'll love P-town (actually, Provincetown, not Providence town, but close enough ;). Family Week, I assume? We may well be there, too. We went last summer for our second time and were there when the court ruled out-of-staters could marry there, but we wanted to do it in CA, naturally. If our marriage gets reversed, I'd thought we may do the same as you are thinking, as we've got to get protection where we can, but am pretty confident ours will remain intact. Where are you staying? We've stayed in both west and east ends.

Scott said...

There might be a perverse sort of fun in getting married in every state that legalizes it. You could dedicate a wall to all of the marriage certificates.

Make it a contest--see how many states you can get married in before a federal ruling or piece of legislation declares your marriage(s) universally recognized.

;)

Christian said...

Congratulations!

And I really like Scott's idea.

A.J. said...

I hope you get the opportunity to get married in all 50 how cool would that be?

Craig said...

Yeah, you should go to Vancouver and get married there too!

Kengo Biddles said...

To tell you, Scot, I think Scott has a fun idea. I mean, since you're going to have to do that, you might as well get recognized in VT, CT and MA -- you could make a Wicked Whirlwind Weekend of Weddings!

Mark said...

if you really are worried about zombies, you learn how to protect yourself by going to zombiedefense.org :)

Scot said...

"Family Week, I assume? "

I'm not sure, Guy. I hope so. I'll talk to the head of the house and find out.

I hope your confidence is well-placed; I'm just so used to losing.

"Where are you staying? "

Again, I'm more of the idea man for the family; Rob's the details guy :-).

Scott: Connecticut, Canada, Spain, South Africa... Hey, that could be a fun way to pass the frustrating time :-).

A.J. "I hope you get the opportunity to get married in all 50 how cool would that be?"

The way things work out, it'll be 49 with Utah being the hold out :-).

Craig "Yeah, you should go to Vancouver and get married there too!"

and scope out job opportunities... But then if we moved up there I'd start saying things like aboot and stuff.

Kengo "you could make a Wicked Whirlwind Weekend of Weddings!"

What's funny is that we know several couples who've done something similar. None of them have split up but I wonder what happens when you divorce after being married 4 times.

We Own the Sky: "if you really are worried about zombies, you learn how to protect yourself by going to zombiedefense.org :)"

As a grown man who had a dream about zombies, I must thank you for referring me to this valuable internet resource.