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.

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.

I’m sure a lot of people will consider this a brand new plot to end the world. But the funny thing is, this sort of temporary marriage has been around for hundreds of years in a variety of cultures. Whether it has value is another question entirely, of course. Just because something has been around a long time doesn’t mean it’s either useful or healthy. Whalebone corsets did little for the health of either women or whales, but they were around for a long, long time.

In Iran, temporary marriage has been practiced for a very long time… but virtually all of the marbles are in the man’s pocket. The woman must be unmarried to enter into the contract, but a man doesn’t have to be. The contract may be broken early, but only if the man decides to do it. If the contract is broken before the temporary marriage is consummated, the woman gets only half the bride price promised… even if the reason is the man’s inability to carry out his end of the bargain.

On the other hand, there has been a version that was beneficial to both partners. In the fifteenth century in the Indonesian Archipelago, women were heavily involved in the thriving business of trading in the ports. Seamen from across the globe came to buy and sell goods in these ports. The men were often lonely and in need of someone to help them understand the cultural requirements of trade – not to mention the language. Local women wanted access to choice foreign goods and no doubt enjoyed the companionship as well. Temporary marriages flourished. When the sailors got back on their ships, the marriages ended with no negative social consequences to the women who had married them. Oh, and any children from these marriages stayed with their mothers.

Temporary marriage was also practiced in Scotland – particularly in the Hebrides where my ancestors hailed from – once upon a time in the form of handfasting. In that tradition, the couple would marry for a year and a day, at the end of which time the husband had the option to make the contract permanent and legitimize any children already born or to send his temporary wife right back to her parents.

So what do I think of all of this? Well, it’s not something I would choose, even if the option was readily available to me. When I make a decision, I usually like to stick with it. I think that depending on how the law is written and how society views it will make a huge difference in whether or not it’s exploitive to women.

But if it’s written carefully so that both partners can gain and neither will hold all the power, then it might well be a viable option for someone who isn’t me.

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.

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?

Few women get more than a few years into adulthood without feeling some outside pressure to get married – especially if they have serious significant others. So what’s a gal who’s feeling the pressure but doesn’t have marriage on her mind? Chen Wei-Yi of Taiwan took a stand against the pressure to get married by staging a most unusual wedding. Who did she marry? She married herself. Her wacky wedding was a response to the government’s recent campaign to encourage marriage and parenthood to boost the island’s very low birthrate.

Maybe it’s not entirely appropriate, but I hope you’ll join me in wishing Chen Wei-Yi hearty congratulations and lots of happiness!

The last couple of months have been a frustrating, distressing time at Casa Twistie and a true test of that vow ‘in sickness and in health.’ We’ve faced this kind of challenge before, and met it handily. So no, it didn’t strain the marriage one iota. It did, however, stress us both out horrifically as individuals.

You see, Mr. Twistie was facing another round of cardiac problems. Yes, another. He had a triple bypass about ten years ago. We were told at the time that somewhere around the ten year mark he would probably need more heart help.

A few months ago, it became clear to us that the time was drawing near. He was having chest pains, difficulty breathing, and his color was going distressingly grey. The joy of trying to convince the doctors on his insurance that he seriously needed help began. Yeah, they have a tendency to tell him to just quit smoking… which would be great advice if he smoked, and send him on his way.

But this is not meant to be a diatribe about the state of health care in the USA, so I’ll restrain myself a little about the dog and pony show. Suffice it to say that Mr. Twistie had to change doctors to get someone to pay attention to his chart, but he found such a doctor at last. Said doctor immediately sent Mr. Twistie on to the cardiologist.

One month, two hospital stays, and one aborted stenting procedure, one aborted consultation for a bypass, and finally a successful triple stenting later, Mr. Twistie came home yesterday with the color back in his cheeks, no longer clutching his chest when it pains him. He’s breathing better, too. My heart feels a million times better, too.

Marriage is a wonderful thing. There are times, though, that test our strength, our faith in one another, and our ability to cope with stress. I wish every one of you as few of those times as possible, because frankly they suck right out loud.

But those of you who face such trials and come out the other side as strong as ever – or even stronger – are truly lucky. It’s in the testing that you discover what your spouse means to you.

Mr. Twistie is my heart. It’s wonderful to have him better again.

Keeping that in mind, I’m not surprised that the number of couples looking to traditional clergy when choosing a wedding officiant is dropping. According to the Wedding Report, clergy performed 70 percent of all weddings in 2008. In 2009, it was down to 62 percent, and apparently even more brides and grooms are now thinking outside the box when it comes to finding a wedding officiant.

What’s outside that box? For many brides and grooms, it’s friends and family! Instead of looking through the phone book when it comes time to decide who will coach them through their wedding vows, they’re looking no further than the contacts lists in their cell phones.

Now what I am not talking about in this post is online ordination, which is one of those things that makes the headlines every so often. I am totally ordained with the ULC, as is everyone I know, but I know for a fact that many, many county clerks will straight up laugh a ULC certificate right out of the courthouse. It’s even apparently on the books as verboten in NYC! So, yes, there is quickie ordination, but there’s also another option.

What I am talking about is having a friend or relative perform a wedding ceremony without going through all the hoopla of convincing some bored bureaucrat that his or her certificate from Rose Ministries or the Ministerial Seminary of America or the Church of the Latter-Day Dude is real and legal. In other words, no ordination necessary! (Provided you’re in the correct locale, of course.)

Brides and grooms marrying in states like Massachusetts, Alaska, or California, or Fairfax County in Virginia, can have their favorite orators register with the state for a kind of day pass that allows them to legally perform a wedding ceremony on a particular date. There may be other states and counties that allow this but don’t publicize it, so it pays to call up to courthouse and ask about it. And if you live in Colorado or Pennsylvania, you can perform your wedding ceremony without any officiant – which, of course, doesn’t bar you from having someone else act as an unofficial officiant.

Let’s say that you’re not getting married in Colorado or Pennsylvania, but you are marrying somewhere where laypeople are permitted to officiate at civil wedding ceremonies. How does your relative or your friend go about applying for the title of deputy marriage commissioner or whatever they happen to call it where you are? To answer that question, let’s have a look at how one would go about it in my lovely state of Massachusetts!

According to Massachusetts General Laws Ch. 207, S. 39 (blah blah blah) the Governor can designate “non-clergy individuals to solemnize a marriage.”

• Applications must be mailed at least six weeks prior to the date of the wedding. Please do not submit applications more than three months in advance.
• Applicants are generally allowed only one designation per calendar year.
• Completed applications must be submitted with a $25 processing fee payable to The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Applications approved by Governor Deval Patrick will be forwarded to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office for processing.
• The names of the applicant, Party A, and Party B must be typed or printed as you wish them to appear on the certificate that will be issued by the Secretary of the Commonwealth. This information must coincide with the names printed on the marriage license. Please use current legal names for Party A and Party B, even if one of the individuals intends to change names following the wedding. Illegible applications will cause a delay in processing.
• A letter of reference attesting to the applicant’s high standard of character is required of all applicants, excepting judges and elected officials. The letter of reference may be written by anyone besides Party A, Party B, or the applicant. The letter must be signed by its author.
• The Secretary of the Commonwealth will issue a Certificate of Solemnization to all approved applicants approximately four weeks prior to the wedding date.

Sounds easy enough, though I do wonder just what goes into a letter of reference meant to prove someone’s high standard of character would contain. I personally love the notion of having a friend or relative officiate at a wedding – if my paternal grandfather had been alive when I got married, I would have asked him to perform the ceremony (he was a minister) – and I wish more states and counties offered what Massachusetts calls a One-Day Marriage Designation.

Not everyone agrees with me, however. In an NPR story of the new trend of relatives and friends solemnizing marriages, the Rev. James Wind, president of the Alban Institute, a research firm focusing on religion, has this to say:

When we do a wedding ceremony, there’s a set of values that has been carried along for centuries in these religious communities that are resources for making this very important relationship, a bedrock relationship in our society, for making this work.

And Larry James, an ordained non-denominational minister and president of CelebrateIntimateWeddings.com, said this in a blog post about the dangers of asking a friend to perform a wedding ceremony:

Although it’s an honor to perform a wedding ceremony, presiding over a friend or family member’s wedding has its pros and cons. There are not many benefits to being married by a family friend. Someone who becomes a wedding officiant for a one-time-only wedding ceremony can cause a bride and groom a lot of stress during the planning of the wedding. The only upside could be that they may do it for free. Free may be inviting but you usually get what you pay for. If money is an issue, cut down on some of the other wedding services, such as favors, etc., then hire a professional.

What do you think? Are we really moving too far from tradition or is this kind of thing really a disaster waiting to happen? Wait, wait, before you answer… it’s looking like yours truly will be performing a wedding in October, right here in Mass. with a one-day pass. That’s right! Never teh Bride is going to be a deputy marriage commissioner!

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