As a little girl, I never dreamed about weddings -- and discarded my baby dolls for dump trucks.
As a grown woman (who became a lesbian-feminist in my early 20s) -- I never professed to understand what the fuss was all about when straight women talked about looking forward to their "special day." (Isn't every day special? Isn't the relationship as important as the wedding?)
Last week I went to the courthouse in Montgomery County Pennsylvania and got a marriage license.
My partner and I went with another couple and then a "self-uniting" ceremony where essentially we married each other without a third-party just as Quaker's have been doing for centuries. It was a private ceremony, with just the four of us. There was no gathering of family and friends, no religious ceremony and no white wedding dresses. My partner and I have been together for 30 years and the other couple has been together for 27 years.
Surprisingly, being legally married does feel different to me -- different in a good way.
Afterwards, as we sat around the table at a nearby Thai restaurant having a celebratory luncheon, we remarked to each other that getting married was easy.
We decided to go when one of the women in the other couple called and mentioned that she noticed that the American Postal Workers Union AFL-CIO has announced on their website that federal benefits are now available to same-sex spouses regardless of where they live or work -- including health insurance and retirement benefits. Postal employees and retirees have until August 26, 2013 to make immediate changes to their health insurance enrollment.
There were no protestors at the Court House -- either pro or con. There were no rainbow flags. One of us commented that maybe same-sex marriage has become a non-issue -- as it should be.
We had a moment of levity as my partner asked on the way in, "Okay, who's pregnant?" -- since we had all decided to get married so quickly. And then we had an impromptu moment of silence as my partner asked, "I wonder what it was like to for the first interracial couples who married after it was legalized." (The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of interracial marriage in 1967, overriding the laws of the states.)
In that moment of silence, we acknowledged that we were part of history, marching forward to claim our rights.
Thirteen states have legal same sex marriage and 30 states have state constitutional bans against gay marriage, while an additional five ban the right to marry by state law -- including Pennsylvania.
Montgomery County began issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples last month when a lesbian couple contacted the County through their lawyer and said they would like to get married.
Register of Wills, Bruce D. Hanes, reviewed the state constitution and found contradictions (the state constitution also says that civil rights of any resident shall not be denied and that no citizen shall be discriminated against because of their sex). To date, about 135 same-sex couples have been granted marriage licenses in Montgomery County since last month when Hanes was contacted by the first couple.
Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Tom Corbett's administration has filed an injunction against Montgomery County to stop issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. Oral arguments are scheduled for September 4 in the Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.
On the opposite side of the state, four hours away in Allegheny County -- which includes the Pittsburgh metropolitan area -- Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock officiated a marriage of two men who had obtained a marriage license in Montgomery County. Interviewed on MSNBC, Fetterman described this as "an act of civil disobedience" and went on to say that legal same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania is just a matter of time.
Obviously, the fight in Pennsylvania is not over.
This past July, the A.C.L.U. brought a lawsuit against Pennsylvania's Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage.
And a recent poll reports that 54 percent of Pennsylvanian's are in favor of same-sex marriage.
Friends from New York state (where same-sex marriage is already legal) suggested that we have a protest wedding. A protest wedding is a great idea.
But our marriage is already real -- as real as it gets.
You can learn more about Tea Leaves: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters here.