I Am So Popular: Oops! I Did It Again.

But marry we did and afterwards, we went back to my car, and I played the Carpenter’s We’ve Only Just Begun on my CD player and we danced in the parking lot. Then Warren, who’d skipped his lunch for the occasion, got in his car and went back to work.

Now, let me clarify something here. We didn’t get regular married. Instead we formed a domestic partnership, a legally binding agreement that gives us some of the rights married couples have. I’m pretty sure this option is used more often by same sex couples that can’t legally marry. So I guess you could say I gay married a straight man.

Our reasons for getting gay married were very practical. For example, I have health insurance now through Warren’s provider. This costs me a decent chunk of change each month, but prior to being domestically partnered no amount of money could have purchased me a self-acquired plan that would actually give me coverage I could use. Also, when I recently had surgery, we happened to be at a hospital where domestic partners are afforded the same rights as married spouses. Which means that immediately post-surgery my doctor was allowed to tell Warren that everything went just fine and to show him some vivid photographs of my innards.

You might think I’d be glad for these new things in my life. And you’d be right—partially. On the other hand, I have to say it pisses me off, too. Why, just because I happen to have a partner, do I get to have things that single folks and many gay couples can’t access?

It’s important to note that domestic partnership rights are not really at all the same as marriage rights. In our case, we knew the benefits we wanted were achievable by sticking with Marriage Lite. And we also know that, should it become necessary, we always have the option to upgrade to a full on marriage thanks to our differing genitals. Gay couples don’t have that option which means they remain at the mercy of rules that vary from state to state, city to city, and employer to employer.

A most excellently embarrassing case in point is occurring right here in Austin at the University of Texas where a state law expressly prohibits domestic partners of employees from receiving health benefits. This has prompted rallies on campus and even, earlier this year, a hunger strike by a UT lecturer. It also threatens to drive away excellent professors and keep still more excellent professors from considering moving here.

I spent the past couple of weeks trying to get ahold of someone of authority to explain to me the legal differences between domestic partnerships and marriage, at least as it applies to Travis County. But all I got were unreturned phone calls and emails explaining that they were busy due to the election. I finally reached a clerk who said, not very convincingly, that she was pretty sure that domestic partnership was the same as common law marriage. However, when I pressed her and said I’d be publishing the information, she transferred me to somebody else’s voicemail.

Since I’m not a lawyer and since I can’t get anyone to return my calls, I had to resort to that bastion of reliability, Wikipedia, to try to sort out domestic partner rights. The best I can figure it out is that these rights are about as reliable as my father was back when I’d ask him if I could go to an upcoming dance. “We’ll see,” he’d say, vaguely, waiting to make his decision until the last minute, leaving me forever in the dark. There was no protocol, nothing I could count on beyond the vagueness.

DP rights are similarly vague. Some domestic partners get treated like spouses. Others don’t. I think maybe being hetero can, in some instances, up your odds of getting rights similar to straight couples that are married, but don’t quote me on that. Apparently, domestic partnership does not entitle you to some federal rights so, if, say, I kick it before he does, Warren will not get Social Security benefits the way he would if he’d just break down and fucking actually marry me already. (Oops, did I say that out loud, Honey?)

On the plus side, domestic partnerships only cost $22 and can be done on the spot, without the 72-hour cooling off period required between the time you get a marriage license (which runs $71) and swap “I do"s, which also requires an officiant or judge, an added expense. And undoing a DP is a lot cheaper—around $20— than retaining a divorce attorney and merely requires one partner to sign a piece of paper saying, “I am so fucking sick of his/her shit that it is OVER.” Then, poof, it’s over.

Last week, something like 3,000 people gathered at Austin City Hall as part of a national protest against the insanity of not letting gay couples marry. This reminded me of the brilliant Austin comedian Tom Hester’s joke about agreeing gays should not be allowed in the military because he’s gay and he doesn’t want to ever get drafted. Along those lines, considering the divorce rate, and considering the financial and emotional hell of divorce, why would anyone—gay or straight— ever want to get married? Shouldn’t gays be glad to be excluded from this club that over 50% of the time eventually turns people into shrieking maniacs?

But marriage is good, I say. And legalizing gay marriage would bring a lot of benefits. For example, I’m a wedding minister and my business would grow exponentially. I could retire from my other fifty odd jobs and just open a little all-night chapel here at the house. And, as I said when I spoke at a pro-gay-marriage rally at City Hall in 2006, Brad and Angelina say they won’t marry until gays can do the same. Let’s think about their poor little bastard children who, no matter how rich and cute they are, will remain nothing but lousy bastards until their parents tie the knot—so pass the law already!

But seriously folks? If two people love each other and want to make a legal bond, one that is not “less than” marriage—as domestic partnership is— but an actual marriage that affords them the rights to have insurance and adopt kids together and take time off of work to care for each other during grave illness and family crisis and is recognized nationally—hello? What the fuck are we waiting for?

In fact, I say let’s take it a step further. Let’s not just legalize gay marriage. Let’s let every citizen have the right to marry a friend, a beloved Boston Terrier, a favorite hairdresser who needs insurance—whomever. Like the buddy system. You only get to be married to one other sentient being at a time, and you have to pay whatever fees are required, and you have to file your taxes together and all that. But as long as you are married to that being, you are saying, “I choose this creature— that I love enough to want to protect and care for both emotionally and legally— to be the recipient of my partner rights in all instances.” Because I’m telling you, I’d be the first one to trot down the aisle with my little dog, Bubbles, which, come to think of it, would not just be an interspecies marriage, but a gay interspecies marriage (except for we wouldn’t have sex but, then, they do say getting married usually puts a stop to that anyway). I know, I know, I have Warren now so under the rules proposed above I couldn’t be both his partner and Bubbles’ wife. But let me tell you, that little dog has been more loyal, and slept more nights beside me, than any man ever did and I would lay down my life for her and do anything I could to make her life the best it can be. And that’s what it’s all about people. We all deserve the legal right to take care of the ones we love as very best we can. And fuck any laws that try to stop that.

Spike and Warren Gillespie request that whatever you were going to spend on buying them a toaster you donate to a fund to legalize gay marriage. Spike blogs regularly at LaunchPad Coworking and www.spikeg.com. She is also head mistress for the Dick Monologues. Email her if you want to reserve tickets for December 14th: spike@spikeg.com.