I have been thinking about my mother lately. It happens when spring comes around, because her birthday is in April and Mother’s Day the month after. She died three years ago, after a valiant struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and ultimately lung cancer. It was awful — holding the hand of the person who gave me most everything important in life while she gasped for air and finally drowned in the lethal fluids that filled her lungs. I wouldn’t have made it through that time if it weren’t for my siblings and my spouse.
My siblings and I are bonded by blood and history. Because of the exceptional loyalty that flows from that bond, I know they will stand by me no matter what. In contrast, my spouse, Sheila, and I are bonded by marriage. We chose each other only after testing the depth of our love and after seriously considering the responsibilities that come with a lifetime commitment. For better and for worse. I have learned that I can depend on her unwavering commitment just as I rely upon the dedication of my siblings.
And now that Sheila must deal with the failing health of her parents, I can help her understand that she will never be alone, as long as I am here to hold her hand, even through the bleakest of times.
It wasn’t until our commitment ceremony many years ago that I began to grasp what it means to get married. After months of preparation, we finally stood before our minister and in front of a tent full of family members under the Rocky Mountain sun. As I said my vows, I realized I was reciting them to my partner, certainly, but also to our families and friends. We asked them to help us be good spouses to each other.
When our minister declared that we were in “the presence of the Holy,” I understood what he meant. Sheila’s family was now mine, and mine was hers. Our community had witnessed a transformation that involved everyone, not just us. We would be a married couple — to our friends, to our neighbors, to our congregation, to our families, to ourselves.
The magnificence of this event is limited, though, because we don’t enjoy that same recognition from the state of Colorado. This would change if our legislators pass Senate Bill 172, the Colorado civil-unions bill.
Even though Sheila and I have been together for 10 years, we can’t hold a candle to many of our friends. Eddy Carroll and Glenn Barrows will celebrate 24 years together this June. They are admired by many as a sterling example of a longtime couple. As Glenn wrote to me the other day, “We have committed to each other in the eyes of our church, family, friends, and community; we are now waiting for the state to catch up.”
When I asked about the future, he continued, “As we get older and consider aging and even end-of-life issues, our lack of legal standing begins to take on a more important meaning.” Like many other gay and lesbian couples, Eddy and Glenn have completed wills and medical powers of attorney in an effort to create what they call “a pale replication of the benefits of marriage.”
Civil recognition of their relationship and the rights that go along with that would mean no longer being second-class citizens, having “the right to say to the world that who we’ve chosen to love honestly and openly is not to be disregarded simply because it doesn’t fit a (shrinking) group’s narrow definition of marriage, of commitment, of love.”
It means ending a profound sense of uncertainty that their wishes — shaped in a union over two decades strong — could be set aside by the state.
Shari Wilkins and Deborah MacNair have been together nearly 27 years. They have been through many medical crises over the years. To them, the issues of hospital visitation and medical decision-making rights are key. The stories they hear haunt them — about gay and lesbian couples being torn apart by elder-care programs and nursing homes that are not required to honor their relationships. “What if we can’t travel the last part of the path together?” Shari asks, and they are isolated in institutions that are supposed to serve the aging? “I have lots of friends in the same predicament.”
Lewis Thompson told me that his husband, Laurin Foxworth (they were legally married in Canada), has two generous pensions, one from his 41 years of service in the Army and the other from his 20 years as a public school teacher. “Neither of these pensions will accrue to me when he dies, assuming that I outlive him. Nor will I receive his Social Security survivor’s benefit. . . . Add to that the knowledge that, all my life, my own hard-earned dollars paid into Social Security won’t buy for me what they would for 95 percent of the population in general, and the kick in the gut is even more brutal.”
They find this predicament unfair, shameful, and “not worthy of a great nation that calls itself a democracy.”
Colorado’s civil-unions bill would help all of us. It would secure protections and responsibilities relating to medical care and hospital visitation; the ability to receive survivor benefits and dependent coverage under life and health insurance policies; the ability to file a claim based on wrongful death or a complaint about the care or treatment of a partner in a nursing home; and other rights and responsibilities instantly granted to opposite-sex married couples.
Those of us who have been fighting to get civil recognition for our relationships have learned to recite the statistics on cue:
• There are more than 1,300 state and federal rights that automatically come with the ability to legally wed.
• Five states and Washington, D.C., have full marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples, and 11 others have civil unions or another form of domestic partnership protections. A Washington Post-ABC News survey released last week said a majority — 53 percent — of Americans now agree same-sex marriage should be legal.
• A study released in February by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law shows that allowing civil unions in Colorado would boost the state budget by nearly $5 million over three years.
We have learned to debunk the misinformation about our loving families:
• Children of same-sex parents fare just as well as those who have opposite-sex parents.
• Giving lesbian and gay couples civil recognition does not mean that religious organizations will be forced to marry them if they don’t want to.
Perhaps logical and moral arguments do persuade some people to understand the importance of recognizing all loving and committed couples. I suspect that the most powerful way to change hearts and minds is to share our stories.
As I honor the memory of my mother this spring, I think of how she stood up at my wedding and declared that Sheila’s family was now her own. She welcomed Sheila as her daughter-in-law, even though the law didn’t recognize her as such. If she were alive, my mother would be proud to support the Colorado civil-unions bill, as would my father, who died 10 years ago.
The family values that were passed on to me are clear. My parents represented them every day of their lives, and they talked about them until they each took their last breath.
On his deathbed, my father told us that the most important thing was to “love each other.” Three years ago, knowing she had only a few days to live, my mother pulled Sheila and me close to say, “Keep fighting the good fight.” My parents taught me that love and justice are intimately interwoven. I urge our state legislators to live up to those family values. Do the right thing. Pass the Colorado civil-unions bill this year.
Kate Burns is an independent filmmaker who teaches digital media studies at The Women’s College of the University of Denver. She was a member of the Colorado Voices panel in 2004.
