During the history of the English-speaking world I would not have been able to marry the woman I love, nor can I today. One of us would have been the wrong religion, the wrong race, or . . . well, see below.
Four hundred years ago in Britain (at the time of William Shakespeare) I would have been the wrong religion. She is Episcopalian (American Anglican) and I am a Jew. English law at that time stated that any Christian who married a Jew, or committed bestiality or sodomy, would be burned at the stake. One heck of a triumvirate!
There were no opinion polls in 1612, but had you asked the voters, they would undoubtedly have been in favor of the law as it stood.
By 200 years ago it was no longer a capital offense, but marriages outside of the Church of England were illegal. That meant that Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anabaptist, and Catholic marriage rites were illegal, as well. It took an act of Parliament in the mid-1840s to reverse this situation.You can read more details about English society at that time with regard to other religions in Shakespeare and the Jews by Shapiro.
Fifty years ago in many of these United States she would have been the wrong race. Several states had laws specifically banning marriage between whites (me) and blacks (her). Felony jail sentences were legally required.
An opinion poll in 1958 of white voters found 96% were in favor of these anti-miscegenation laws as they stood. It took a ruling of the Supreme Court in 1967 to strike them down; the court found that if the only criterion for a felony was the race of the person involved, the law was unconstitutional.
Today in the State of Washington we cannot get married because she is the wrong gender. She is a woman, with a woman's heart, a woman's mind, and a woman's soul, and has lived as a woman for years, but she was born male in the state of Ohio, which does not allow changing gender on a birth certificate. For me, "domestic partnership" smacks of the yellow star and ghetto, while for her it is reminiscent of "Don't be uppity" and "Know your place."
This year in Washington we have a new law granting marriage equality, but a referendum has been filed to reverse this and will likely be on the ballot in November for popular vote. I don't think this is fair: did I get to vote on other peoples' marriages? (There are a few I would have liked to veto, though only for personal reasons.) So if the law isn't supported by a popular vote, I will have to change my birth certificate to female. I can see the ceremony now: "Do you take this man to be your wedded wife? Do you take this woman to be your wedded husband? You may kiss the--uh, you may kiss."
My prospective father-in-law, a black man in his 80s, said, "I don't see why people want to prevent you from doing the moral thing." And anyone who is against gay sex ought to be in favor of gay marriage.
Anyone in the State of Washington, please don't sign the petition for Referendum 74, and vote in November to SUPPORT Referendum 74 to maintain marriage equality.