Yesterday in a vote of 55 to 43, the Washington State House passed a bill to legalize same sex marriages. The Senate approved the measure last week, and Governor Chris Gregoire is expected to sign it into law as soon as it hits his desk.

In fact, Gregoire issued a statement after the vote that it is:

“a major step toward completing a long and important journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

It was passed without proposed amendments that would have allowed bakers and photographers a waiver from providing services to same sex couples due to religious belief, such as are granted to churches. Since the last time I heard, bakers weren’t churches, I think this is only right and fair. After all, in my bookselling days I had to sell books to people who were homophobic, racist, sexist, and all kinds of other things I find wildly offensive. As long as they weren’t breaking the law or strongly disrupting the business I was engaged in, I had to serve them to the best of my ability. I didn’t have to enjoy it, but I had to do it.

The new law is scheduled to go into effect ninety days after the end of the session next month, but opponents are already working to put a measure on the next ballot that would negate this vote.

Still, this signals a major turnaround in state marriage politics since the state legislature passed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1998. While the state Supreme Court upheld the act in 2006, it was overturned that same year by a gay civil rights measure. In 2007, a domestic partnership law was passed which the voters upheld.

Washington state legislature, I salute you! And may the voters of your state be more fair-minded and less paranoid than the ones in mine.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court has declared Proposition 8 a violation of the rights of gay Californians.

In his write up of the decision, Judge Reinhardt wrote:

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Reinhardt was quick to say that this decision is only about this issue in this state, but the court’s decision that denying same sex couples the right to marry violates their rights as human beings and as citizens could well add weight to the case for marriage equality when it comes before the Supreme Court.

Sometimes justice is slow, but I firmly believe it will come for all of us. Today, I got another proof that my faith is justified. It is my fond hope that California will rejoin the ranks of those who offer full rights to all its citizens soon.

‘Til death do us part.

That’s the vow, right? That you’ll stay together until one or the other of you dies?

We all know couples who haven’t managed that one. Heck, I’m the second Mrs. Twistie! His first marriage didn’t end with a death, but with divorce. Some of you have talked in comments about previous marriages. Right now, I happen to be doing a lot of hand-holding for a very good friend who decided to call her marriage quits after ten years because she has never been happy in it.

I swore ’til death do us part, and I fully intend to honor that vow. But I completely get that not every relationship is going to work out that way. And so I was intrigued with the fact that Mexico City has a proposal currently on the table for temporary marriages.

The proposed temporary marriage would have a two-year minimum term, at the end of which couples would have the option to either extend the contract or dissolve the marriage without the legal hassles of a divorce. The marriage would simply end.
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Wow.

Eighteen years.

Tomorrow marks the eighteenth anniversary of my marriage to Mr. Twistie.

Where the heck did all those years go? I don’t know. All I know is that I wouldn’t have spent them with anyone else on a bet.

The funny things is, I don’t even really remember meeting Mr. Twistie. I remember the day, and I remember that I did meet him. But the actual meeting… not so much. I know he was one of about a dozen people I was introduced to at the archery booth at Renaissance Faire that hot August afternoon, but the people? I didn’t pay that much attention. I was there to see a high school buddy, and I didn’t really figure on meeting these people again except, perhaps, in the course of Faire revelry.

Little did I know that these people would become some of the most important people in my life for decades to come. Little did I know that as I hung out trading Monty Python quotes with Michelle that the drunk leaning against a post was developing a little crush on me. If someone had told me that day that there leaned the man I would one day marry… I would never have stopped laughing.

Sometimes you just don’t have a clue.

After all, eighteen years ago tomorrow, I woke early, ate a good breakfast, put on my wedding gown and put together a last-nanosecond headpiece, got my picture taken a whole lot, and said ‘I do’ with joy, pride, and confidence. I spent the rest of the day laughing and dancing and talking with my friends.

The high school friend wasn’t there. She’d drifted out of my life several years earlier. I still miss her now and again, but our lives happened to diverge about the time I really noticed that guy who had been just another Faire drunk a few years earlier.

Michelle, I have no idea where you are now or what you’re up to, but I just want to thank you. Neither of us had any idea that day back in 1980 that you introduced me to the love of my life. You did.

Since the day we married, we’ve been tested in all sorts of ways, but our marriage remains strong. I know in my heart of hearts that if the clock suddenly turned back eighteen years and I woke up tomorrow to find it was my wedding day again, I would speak those same vows with every bit as much joy, pride, and confidence as I said them then.

Mr. Twistie, my beloved, thank you for all these years. Here’s to the next eighteen… and beyond.

When you say “I do,” the hope is that you’re saying I do forever. Today, I was tempted to write something about wedding superstitions , but I don’t want to promote the hype that some minor decision made in advance of the big day can ruin a wedding or make a couple unlucky forever. It’s more important to get married on a date that’s convenient for you and your loved ones, to wear the colors that you love, to see your spouse the morning of the wedding or not, to traipse around in your wedding dress and bridal veil whenever you feel like if you want to, and so on. With everything else brides and grooms have to worry about, I don’t want to be the one to add bad luck to the list!

Of course, one can find love at any age!

So instead of going on about bad luck on this Friday the 13th, I thought I’d wind down NtB Loves week by talking about a topic that I think is extraordinarily luck: Old love. From what I hear, there’s nothing quite like it… to have someone you’ve grown old with by your side, a person who’s walked with you through the best and the worst of life. That’s pretty awesome, you have to admit! Even if, like Alton Nichols, 82, and Betty Hall, 87, you don’t find each other until you’ve walked through a lot of bests and worsts without one another. Recently, my own grandparents celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary, which is quite the achievement these days!

Has anyone in your circle hit 60 years of marriage? Who are your Old Love role models?

Money is supposedly the thing couples are most likely to fight over, whether they’re married or shacking up. In my opinion, not enough people talk about money before saying ‘I do’, which may be part of why it’s such a hot button issue.

How else is a bride-to-be going to find out her future spouse is carrying thousands of dollars in consumer debt and wants to merge bank accounts or conversely, has perfect credit but doesn’t believe in joint checking? It’s not just about debt load – it’s about overall attitudes toward money and marriage. Topics that engaged couples often fail to cover include: Will you maintain separate savings accounts? Or pool your debts? How will be bills be paid? And so on.

Okay, I know it’s not a conversation anyone really wants to sit down and have, but in an effort to get you started, I found 5 myths about money and marriage written up by Adrian Nazari of Credit Sesame:

1. When I marry, if my spouse has a lower credit score, it will negatively impact my score.
Your credit reports, as well as your credit scores, are tied to your Social Security number, and since these don’t merge when you get married, neither do your reports or scores.

2. I will lose my credit history when I change my name to my new married name.
If your credit is bad, this may seem appealing, but it doesn’t happen. Your credit history is linked to your Social Security number and remains the same.

3. Interest rates for homes and cars purchased together will be lower because we have more income being married.
Interest rates are based only in part on your income. Other factors include debt to income ratio and credit score, and if your combined debt also goes up or one of you has a low score, it could mean higher interest rates.

4. Joining our finances means I will take on the debt burden my spouse accumulated before we were wed.
While you are not legally responsible for the credit card balances created before you tied the knot, taking the approach of “it’s your debt, you deal with it” may not be a wise decision.

5. After the wedding, I will automatically become a joint user on my spouse’s accounts.
Marriage doesn’t automatically make you an authorized user on a credit card; it still takes a phone call. But be careful with this–if you have the better credit score, you can help improve your spouse’s score by making him or her a joint account holder on your accounts.

Maybe this is all old hat to you, but considering I thought that I would own all of The Beard’s pre-marriage debt equally, I’m guessing at least a few of you out there are not as well-versed as you could be when it comes to money and marriage. ENGAGED PEOPLE: TALK ABOUT MONEY BEFORE YOU TIE THE KNOT! KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU’RE HEADED, MONEY-WISE! It can’t hurt, and it will almost always prevent disagreements later on.

Last month, you may have read that Katy Perry enacted a ‘no sex before marriage’ rule with sex addict Russell Brand in the months leading up to her wedding. But holding off on the pre-nuptial nookie isn’t just a celebrity thing! I know at least a few couples who gave it a go, enacting a ‘no sex during the engagement’ rule that was made to be broken.

Keep in mind that I’m not talking about people who are saving themselves for marriage or anyone who decided to go celibate after doing the deed. These are couples who’ve been hitting the sheets up until one of the pair decided to put a ring on it, so it’s not a purity or chastity thing. Nope. It’s an excitement thing. They’ve been doing the deed up until now, but what a deed it’ll be if they haven’t done it for six months or twelve months or sixteen months!

So these are sex bans intended for wedding night enhancement. I can’t say I love the idea, but I don’t hate it, either. Whatever brides and grooms want to do (or not do) in the bedroom is up to them. But I do think it’s a little silly – the no sex before marriage dam has already been breached. If I figured these same people would have occasional sex bans to spice things up, it’d be one thing. But these sex bans are specifically tied to weddings. What do you think?