Andrew Solomon
married his partner this spring in England, where
officials were enthusiastic about the union. Would that be
the case back home in America?
I was not the one
who wanted to get married. John Habich, my partner
since the summer of 2001, had brought up a commitment
ceremony from time to time, but without legal meaning,
the whole idea felt like a sham to me. Our families,
colleagues, and widely dispersed friends all knew that
we planned to spend the rest of our lives together; I
wasn’t sure that any purpose was served in
making them gather at an inconvenient location in
further recognition of our affection. But John saw a
ceremony in personal rather than political terms and
fantasized about the gratification to be had by
pledging our troth publicly before our chosen
community, whether or not any civil rights were attached. I
believe fervently in partnership parity for gay and
straight couples, and holding a ceremony without such
equality had for me the taint of giving in --
virtually consenting to prejudice in a smiling
submissiveness worthy of Uncle Tom. We could get
married, I thought, if and when we could really
get married.
The matter
hovered in a state of suspended indecision until the United
Kingdom passed the Civil Partnership Act, which went into
effect in late 2005. It grants same-sex couples all
the rights associated with marriage, with two notable
exceptions: It is not legally called marriage, and it
cannot be conferred by a member of the clergy. These
provisos notwithstanding, everyone calls it marriage,
and many people annex a religious blessing to the
registrar’s official proclamation. Since I am a
dual national with British as well as American citizenship,
our marriage under the new law would offer real
meaning. Among other rights, it would entitle John to
residence in the United Kingdom and ultimately to British
citizenship. If we ever decided to give up our U.S.
citizenship, we would not have to pay inheritance tax
on each other’s estate. We would be
automatically recognized as next of kin in any medical
emergency. I wish the ceremony were called marriage,
but as a nationally acknowledged set of protections,
it gratified my yen for meaningful social progress.
So we decided in
mid 2006 to marry in England the following summer, when
our friends could bring their children. It was surprising
how many people asked why we hadn’t just gone
to Massachusetts instead. I explained that, quite
apart from the fact that we don’t live or own
property there, marriage is a national institution,
and that what we were going to do in England had
meaning in that entire sovereign nation. While Massachusetts
marriages came with some rights, they wouldn’t have
any weight in the most crucial areas of the law --
never mind that our home base is New York.
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Solomon is the author of The Noonday Demon: An
Atlas of Depression, which won the 2001 National
Book Award for Nonfiction.