Part of my work in public health is leading courses on some of the diseases with which I work. Every now and again, the job provides me an opportunity to look through windows into someone else’s life – the people who attend our courses are extremely diverse. Many attend multiple courses, and they become familiar with those who lead the courses. One such person is attending the course I’m leading this week.
Since this time the course is in the town I’ve lived in for over a decade, many of the participants have also known me through other jobs or personally. Many have commented on my name – I changed it when my husband and I married last year in California, and it’s fairly unusual to see a man’s last name change. This, of course, gives me an opportunity for visibility and conversations about marriage equality – and many have taken the opportunity to congratulate me, which is heartening.
One such person, a young black man who has attended a couple of other trainings, walked up to me yesterday morning during a class break and asked me about the name change.
"Has your last name always been ____?"
"Well, no, I changed it last October."
"Why the change?"
"I got married!"
He congratulated me (he’s also gay) and then moved in closer, to ask more questions.
"You got married in California?"
"Yessir, last September."
"Wow...and you’re still married, right?"
"The court let it stand, so yes, California still considers us married."
"But it’s not open to anyone else?"
"No, Proposition 8 closed that."
Pained look from him. "We were hoping to go do that this year. The kids were really looking forward to that." (Statistics report that black gay folks are more likely to be raising kids, by the way.)
"Well, there are still other states that are open to you, in fact more than ever..."
He had thought that no other state was open to outsiders who wanted to marry, and wasn’t well informed on the advances in Iowa and New England, so we had a conversation about which states are options now, and when marriage equality begins in Vermont. He had a lot of questions on the process. "How do you get married? Where do you go? Is there...some special office you have to go to?" I did my best to answer those questions, and he promised to email me with more questions so I could help him and his husband become husbands in the eye of the law somewhere. His step seemed lightened by the fact that there were other places they could marry, and I felt good having shared that experience with someone. My husband and I don’t know many other gay couples, much less others who have married. We live in Backwardstan.
The day continued on, and during an afternoon break, I watched the blogs intently, looking for signs of the New Hampshire House passing HB73. My phone buzzed...a text from my husband: "It passed 198-176!!!!"
I walked over to this young man with a broad smile on my face.
"Whatchou smiling for?," he asked.
"Your number of options just went up to six," I said. "New Hampshire just passed marriage equality."
His face lit up. He smiled brightly the rest of the afternoon. So did I.