It wasn’t that either of us sought a same sex life partnership.
In each other we simply and truthfully found our soul-mate in abiding, unconditional love.
The soul knows not gender.
Such is ours, love shared without question …with our children (I have two natural children by my first marriage, my partner three by hers and we have taken two into our hearts by way of adoption), all united in joy extending to embrace our natural and ‘adopted’ families. Such is our ‘queer’ family circle in today’s uncertain world and our family journey to legalize our marriage now deemed illegal in California.
When we married under law in San Diego, all was right in the world, as it should be, when two legally consensual adults and their families in witness and harmony unite in wedlock. Frankly, our wedding bore little fanfare … no overt bride nor groom; just two women and a trail of children, family and flowers who had found love and permanence in shared eyes, hearts and hands under family and ex-spousal blessing, bounded by a moral and legal reason to formalize a life commitment to grow roots together extending into the community … all for the right reasons.
Proposition 8.
California’s State Constitution put this measure into immediate effect on November 5th, 2008, the day after a contentious election. In a nutshell the campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised $35.8 million and $37.6 million, respectively, becoming the highest-funded campaign on any state ballot that day … and surpassing every campaign in US spending, with exception to the recent run for the White House. The proponents argued for exclusively heterosexual marriage, relying on a failure to reverse a May 2008 Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples to marry would damage society, require change to what was taught in schools about marriage, and threaten ‘religious freedom’. The opponents argued that eliminating the rights of any Californian, in short, to mandate one group to be treated differently from everyone else was unfair and wrong.
Granted, there are undeveloped arguments on both sides; notwithstanding, on January 5th, 2009 we landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport to legalize our union, move our life, home, practices and families forward … commence life anew with breathing space … in Canada.
Suffice it say that I am a leading international defense attorney, my partner a respected high net worth advisor. What we bring to Canada will tangibly enhance both our families’ lives and the contribution that we offer professionally to any community and jurisdiction where we choose to call home] and to reciprocally receive Charter of Rights enjoyment in our union.
For the curious, we are your family next door. We are your hockey-moms, local MP’s, defenders of the displaced and needy; your champions of rights and freedom. You will find us at local committee meetings, nursing the elderly, questioning rate hikes, shoveling your driveways.
Love knows not gender.
Soon to become proud Canadians.
