As some of you may know by reading my comments, my partner Stef and I have been "married" [and, yes, I have to put it in quotes] for over 26 years now. We met in 1983 when I was 39 and raising my 11, 13 and 15 year old sons in Manhattan and he moved in and help me raise them. A few years later, we moved to California and the two younger boys came West to California with us.
Once the guys were grown and gone, Stef and I decided that since it was the only option open to us we would get "domesticized". Yes, the "throw them a bone" Domestic Partner's Act". All the detriments of marriage with none of the benefits. But still, it was a statement we could make and so, in 1991 I got a beautiful ring on the steps on City Hall, a certificate of authenticity from the county clerk [which, by the way of irony, has the seal of the county of San Francisco on it of two men, one a farmer and the other a sailor - I'm not making this up] and we had a great reception that night with about fifty friends and family and a honeymoon night in a boutique hotel downtown. The next day, we went home, had the certificate framed, hung it on the wall and went on with our lives.
And what a great life we've had (have). The joy of family. The joy of love combined with real friendship/companionship and work that we loved. We owned and operated several small successful restaurants, one of which is still an institution in San Francisco, "Dottie's True Blue Cafe" and spent a year as the civilian curmudgeons on "The Site" on MSNBC when the network first launched. Finally we retired to the desert just outside Joshua Tree. Then came 2001. First we watched brokenhearted as our beloved New York and our friends were destroyed in September and in December, I came down with pneumonia. Which kept getting worse. And after the tests came back turned out to be pneumocystis. I had AIDS. Stef had been HIV+ since we met, but had never been ill and I had always tested negative every year since we'd been together. It was quite a battle. I was on life support for eighteen days and every day was supposed to be my last. Everyone came to say good-bye but Stef was there day and night telling me it wasn't so. And he was right. Of course, I came out of it slightly worse for wear, but out of it.
So what's the point of all this, you ask? Well, Stef and I had to get a divorce! I needed long term care that we really couldn't afford without loosing everything. He was still working, but I could not, so we had to go back to being "roommates". All of this is only background to tell you how hard it was for us not to be able to get married when it was briefly legal to do so in California and how devastated we were over Prop 8.
But now there's been such encouraging news. Especially Iowa, DC, and the fight in Maine, and the point of all this is this man,
Philip Spooner
A man who makes me proud to be an American.
A man who makes me proud to be Gay.
A man who makes me proud to be a dad and a granddad.
A man who makes me proud to be a husband.
A man who makes me wonder if I'm too old to be adopted.
With love from
Uncle Sal