Don’t get me wrong, I love Mr. Cookie with all my heart and soul, but we really didn’t need a piece of paper or a pastor pronouncing us husband and wife to seal the marriage deal. We were married in our hearts a long time ago.
Sans a marriage certificate, we’ve been leading a nuclear family lifestyle. We eat breakfast and dinner together every evening – I do the majority of the cooking but Mr. Cookie knows his way around the kitchen! I clean up the bathrooms, while Mr. Cookie has doggie poo duty. Mr. Cookie pays for the mortgage, while I pay off my student loans. And we both take care of our beautiful Pomeranian. We called it domestic partner bliss.
But Mrs. Cookie isn’t one of the advantages to getting married a tax break? Actually, not for us Cookies. Ever heard of the marriage penalty? Well, the marriage penalty is going to hit us hard this year, and that means no tax breaks for the Cookie. If you would like a longer explanation of the marriage penalty ask Mr. Cookie, he is the financial analyst in the relationship.
Besides love, what motivated us to get married?
A little over a year ago, Mr. Cookie and I were passing through United States customs after a vacation to Europe – the vacation were Mr. Cookie proposed to me. In the six countries we traveled though, we were always allowed to go through customs together and never once asked if we were married. We approached the United States customs counter together and were promptly asked by the customs agent, “Are you married?” Mr. Cookie replied, “No, but we are engaged.” The customs agent looked directly at me and said, “Madam, you are going to have to wait behind the yellow line.” Ok, so I get the need for security, but we were both a little taken aback by the incident. Mr. Cookie is my partner. He is my family. Why couldn’t I pass through security with him? Six other countries had let us, without question. But without that little piece of paper we were not recognized in the eyes of the United States Government as anything but single. Legally, without that little piece of paper we had no rights as a couple.
Joanne Mock, left, and Beth Kerrigan speak to a reporter in front of the Connecticut State Supreme court in Hartford, Conn., on Monday, May 14, 2007. The two are part of the court case Kerrigan & Mock et al v. Connecticut Department of Public Health, which deals with same-sex marriage and will be argued before the state Supreme Court.
In a 4-3 ruling, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry. The ruling follows behind Massachusetts and California, and Connecticut will be the third state to allow same-sex marriages. To read more about the ruling, I encourage you to read the Associated Press article.
Before getting engaged and our experience through customs, gay marriage wasn’t a matter I paid much attention to. It didn’t seem relevant to my life. However, after our customs encounter Mr. Cookie and I understood what that little piece of paper meant, especially for gay couples, and the right to be married to the person I loved seemed more relevant to my life than ever before.
If there is anything I have learned in my relationship with Mr. Cookie is that sometimes we have to agree to disagree. So, for those the sake of this post, let’s agree to disagree.
Mr. Cookie and I got married because we love one another. We are each others family, we want to be with each other for the rest of our lives, and we want to have the right to be recognized as a married couple in the eyes of the government. I couldn’t even imagine being denied the right to recognized Mr. Cookie as my husband or me as his wife.
Why did you and your partner decide to get married?
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