Ten years of equality

Ten years ago last night, the New Zealand Parliament enacted marriage equality into law. I remember watching the final debate live on Parliament TV, so I saw the famous speeches and the waiata after the bill passed it’s final reading. It was a wonderful time.

This also means it’s just a bit more than six months until what would have been the tenth anniversary of when Nigel and I were married, what we both called the happiest day of our lives. We passed the 14th anniversary of our civil union back in January, the day we called that the second-happiest day of our lives, largely because, at the time, being able to legally marry was something neither of us expected would ever become reality—until it did. After that, marriage upped the ante of the happiness stakes. Ten years ago last night, the NZ Parliament made it possible for Nigel and me to be able to fulfill a dream.

I think about all that, of course, though not necessarily often or in depth—but I do think about it. I think, first, about how lucky I was to be able to marry my soulmate, which isn’t a gift given to everyone. Our “married life” was far too short, and it only a fraction of our time together.

I also think about what being ABLE to be married meant to me, something I talked about the night it was passed by Parliament in a post I titled, aptly, “Becoming real”, which, I think, is one of the best things I’ve ever published on this blog. Since then, I’ve often talked about how much it meant to me that marriage equality gave us the ability to take on the same commitment and obligations that any heterosexual could do without question. I finally felt part of society in a way I never had before.

I still believe in the power of love and, for those who choose it, marriage. What I argued for all those years ago was once simple word: Options. All adults ought to have the same legal options, and ten years ago the New Zealand Parliament agreed. It was a momentous day.

Thirteen years later

It’s now been thirteen years since Nigel and I had our civil union ceremony. So much has changed since then, and even since the eleventh anniversary, which Nigel didn’t live to see. I noted as much in my personal Facebook post earlier today:

Thirteen years ago today, Nigel and I had our Civil Union. It was, at the time, the happiest day of our lives—until we were married in 2013, when that day took the title. Becoming a widower is absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, but *why* I found that out is because Nigel and I were together and a family. That “why” kind of sands the edges off the pain, because the only way I could’ve avoided that is if Nigel hadn’t been part of my life—part of me. That love we shared still carries me forward—it’s actually what makes it possible for me to move forward. That day 13 years ago was a very happy one. The memory of it still is a happy one.

I think that probably says as much about where I’m at, existentially speaking, as anything else could. I still miss him every single day, I still think about what he’d say, and what he’d think, but I also have to live life. In fact, I feel I have to live it for both of us. I said as much in reply to a friend on the facebook post:

I hope to bring comfort or understanding to others, which is why I share so much. It’s definitely a long and difficult journey, but if I didn’t try with all my might to move forward and live for Nigel and me both, I’d feel I was dishonouring everything we had. I have no idea what the future will bring, but it’ll be built on everything that was—that much I know for sure!

And so it is. Thirteen years ago today Nigel and I finally had legal recognition of our relationship. That, in turn, came some 13 years after it began, neatly enough. That won’t be the last coincidental alignment of numbers, but I like this one.

This particular anniversary no longer matters, not just because we were married a few years after the civil union, and not just because Nigel's gone, though all that matters. Instead, it’s because that earlier anniversary was superseded by both our marriage and its end and the fact that I’m moving forward in my life. It was inevitable, and that’s—now—a welcome thing.

This anniversary used to be the final event it what I called my “Season of Anniversaries”, something that also doesn’t matter anymore. Even so, some of the anniversaries within that “season” were and remain important to me: The day I first arrived in New Zealand as a tourist, the day I arrived in New Zealand to live, and, of course, my birthday. I’m still learning what they all mean without Nigel as part of them—except, of course, he still is.

Last year, I quoted my post from 2019: “So, Happy anniversary to us! Once again.” I’ll still go with that.

Previously

2009: Perfect Day – where it began
2010: One and Fifteen
2011: Second Anniversary, squared
2012: Three years ago today
2013: Fourth Anniversary
2014: An anniversary
2015: Anniversaries
2016: A seventh Anniversary
2017: Eight years later
2018: Nine years later
2019: Ten years later
There was no post in 2020.
2021: Twelve years later

40th Outaversary

Today was an anniversary I didn’t even notice at first, not until a friend pointed it out to me: Today is my 40th “Outaversary”. That’s because 40 years ago today was the first time I did anything to publicly identify myself as gay.

I knew that today was the anniversary because of a Facebook “Memory” I shared today (partial screenshot above). All I noticed was that it was calling attention to a 2019 blog post about the 60th anniversary of my baptism. That post was titled, “60 and 38 years ago today”, and all I thought was that it was the year of my sixtieth birthday, and that inevitably made me think of what a terrible year that ended up being. That happens pretty much whenever I see any reminder from 2019.

That means that I didn’t stop to think much beyond that the post was talking about something that was now 62 years ago—but it never occurred to me to add two years to the other anniversary, the one that 2019 post actually points out was more important. I probably wouldn’t have noticed at all if my friend Andy hadn’t pointed it out to me. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to me before.

The fact that I’ve now been out for 40 years is significant, especially because so many of the gay men who came out when I did died decades ago. I survived through a combination of luck and my generally cautious nature. Along the way, I like to think, I did some good for us all.

The biggest and most important thing that happened to me after I came out is that I met Nigel, and we legally formalised our relationship, first with a Civil Union (because that’s all we had), then marriage when that became legal. The happiest and proudest thing I’ve ever done in my life so far was marrying Nigel. It mattered to me on a completely personal level, but also as someone who had struggled for so long to make the world a little less hostile to LGBT+ people: I felt like all the sacrifices I made in the 1980s and early 1990s were repaid.

When Nigel died, none of what I felt about our marriage died: I was still proud to be married to him. It’s one of the reasons I never changed my Facebook relationship status to “Widowed”—though, if I’m truly honest, good old fashioned lethargy was probably a much bigger reason. Regardless, I wanted to be an example of a happily married gay man.

That same thing showed up in so many other ways, including photos, as a I noted in a post back in January about birthday selfies:

I don’t know if I intended for the photos in 2015 and 2016 to have the same theme (I probably did), however, I do know that in both photos, as with so many others, I deliberately made sure that my left hand was visible because then my rings would be, too. I’ve always felt a responsibility to be a symbol of a happy, long-term gay relationship, and that’s the most consistently visible way I did that, even though I didn’t actually ever say that until now

I didn’t mean to keep that a “secret”—it probably just never occurred to me to mention it. What I do know is that I still wear my rings—the one from our civil union and the one from our marriage—and I do so for the same reason I said in January. I know some gay widowers take their rings off after awhile—sometimes they switch hands, sometimes they put them on a chain they wear around their neck, and some even have them made into something new. None of that is me. I have no intention of taking them off, and when I die I want them to go with my ashes (though I won’t be here, so, ya know, whatever).

For me, the bottom line is that I fought too hard for too long to not continue being an example now. I may not have my husband any more, but I’m still an out gay man, proud of trying my best to make the world better, and mostly, proudest of all about my years with and marriage to Nigel.

All of that—all of it—began forty years ago today. Damn right I’m celebrating it.

Related:

"Outaversary" – My 2016 blog post where I talked about my 35th Outaversary.

Twelve years later

Twelve years ago today Nigel and I had our civil union ceremony. That meant we were legally joined in the only way available to us back in 2009, though we were married in 2013. But that day in 2009 was the first time we had a proper legal status, so it matters.

Most of the previous paragraph is taken from my post on this anniversary from back in 2019, the tenth anniversary of our civil union. The first sentence was the only one I updated for this post. I couldn’t even do that last year.

In my defence, on January 24 last year I’d only just moved into my new house and didn’t had full Internet yet, so posting much of anything on this blog was difficult, and, anyway, I was busy trying to get the basics unpacked and the house in some semblance of order. But I also don’t seem to have mentioned it on on my personal Facebook, either—and I apparently didn’t in 2019, either.

So: Here I am. It’s 12 years since that hot summer day when the life that Nigel and I had spent 13 years building was finally legally recognised. Here’s how I summarised when I shared the FB “Memory” (above) on my personal Facebook today:

Twelve years ago today, Nigel and I finally had legal recognition of our relationship, more than 13 years after it began. A little less than five years later, we were able to legally marry, and we did. We had the civil union ceremony at a big family event at our house on January 24, 2009—an incredibly hot day. Then we pivoted and it became a 50th birthday party for me because Nigel didn’t want to be the centre of attention. When we were married in 2013, it was a simple ceremony at the registry office, and then another big family party at our house a couple days later.

I think about all of that together when I think of any one part, because they were all linked. I’m so lucky that I was able to meet my true soulmate, and to marry him. No matter what the future holds, I’ll always have that.

What I didn’t know at the time I wrote that was that I’d said something in a similar vein in 2018, on the ninth anniversary of our civil union:

Everything we do in life is connected to everything else, one way or another, and our civil union was the ceremony, our later marriage the finalisation of what happened nine years ago today. And that’s why I remember it every year.

I only found that out when I was checking posts on this from previous years (and also found out I didn’t do one last year). Which goes to show, I suppose, that this blog has value for me in helping me to remember things, especially things I otherwise wouldn’t.

Technically, this anniversary no longer matters, not the least because we were married a few years after the civil union. However, it’s also clear that it’s true that “everything we do in life is connected to everything else, one way or another,” and this day 12 years ago was an important part of our “everything else”.

This anniversary was also the final event it what I called my “Season of Anniversaries”, something that also doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Yet some of the anniversaries within that “season” were especially important for me personally: The day I first arrived in New Zealand as a tourist, the day I arrived in New Zealand to live, and, of course, my birthday. However, all three, except for my birthday, were also directly connected to Nigel—actually, in a way, even my birthday was, too.

Connected as all those “everythings” are, I can’t really work out how they conenct to me in my new reality. Maybe that’s why I didn’t mention it last year. But I’m mentioning it again this year, so maybe they’ll continue to matter in the future? I have absolutely no idea. But this year I remembered, and I shared that fact. I take that at face value, and I’ll wait to see if this becomes clearer to me next year.

In 2019, I concluded with: “So, Happy anniversary to us! Once again.” I’ll go with that this year, too.

Previously

2009: Perfect Day – where it began
2010: One and Fifteen
2011: Second Anniversary, squared
2012: Three years ago today
2013: Fourth Anniversary
2014: An anniversary
2015: Anniversaries
2016: A seventh Anniversary
2017: Eight years later
2018: Nine years later
2019: Ten years later
There was no post in 2020.

It’s still seven years married

Seven years ago today Nigel and I were legally married. It was the happiest day we had together, which makes today quite sad. There was a time we both thought marriage would be impossible, until it was it possible. And we were so happy—before the marriage and after, but to be able to be married was very special to us both. It’s a happy memory.

But, it IS just a memory now. I can’t change that, no matter how much I want to, no matter how hard I wish for it, demand it, or dream about it. What’s done is done, and I can’t change that.

There’s one more thing that hasn’t changed, and I’ve been very clear about it from the beginning of this grief journey: As far as I’m concerned, Nigel and I are still married, even though, obviously, we aren’t anymore in a legal or corporeal sense. When I get some form that demands my marital status, like a NZ government form, for example, I have to put “Widow/Widower”. That’s what I am now, and I know that. However, aside from that, when it comes up I’ll sometimes refer to Nigel as “my late husband”, which is a common enough thing to do, but to me it’s not just making clear that he’s died—I’m also declaring that he was my husband, and, more subtly, I’m really saying that, to me, he still is my husband.

Actually, I often still say us, our, and we, in the present tense, which is mostly out of a decades-long habit. Sometimes I remember to use the past tense, or use the pronouns for me alone. That much is evolving, but it’s still part of the fact that, in my mind, I think of us as an us, even though we’re no longer together physically.

Today has been another a mixed emotions day. Memories of marrying my Nigel are still very happy ones, but the fact he’s no longer here makes me indescribably sad. I’m happy we found each other, and sad that it ended. Still we were together, we were married, and, in a sense, we still are.

I’ll close this year with what I said last year, because it’s still true, too:

So, sad and with mixed (and often conflicting) feelings, all I can think of to say is what I would have said to Nigel if he was still alive: Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. I love you.

And, I do. I said that seven years ago today, too.

Previously
Mixed feelings day (2019)
Fifth Anniversary (2018)
Fourth Anniversary (2017)
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)

Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

Another anniversary

Today is the seventh anniversary of when Nigel and I got married. I’ll have more to say about that later today, but, for now, here’s what I said on my personal Facebook today:

Here we are again. Seven years ago today, Nigel and I were legally married, and this is now the second marriage anniversary since Nigel died. This year it’s no easier than it was last year, because even though we had several other days marking us becoming an *us*, this one was special. Marriage was something neither of us thought would actually be possible, until it was (and thank you, New Zealand!). Marriage was important to us both, not just as a concept, nor just for the legal protection it gave to our family—although all of that mattered—but also because it was a way to build a fortress around us, one in which we could be safe and secure and just get on with life.

We loved each other deeply, and that day seven years ago we committed to each other in front of a government official and gained official government recognition of our love and commitment to each other. It was possibly the most consequential day in our lives together, but it was definitely one of the happiest.

I miss Nigel today as much as I did last year, and, even now, there are days I wonder how I can possibly go on without him. It turns out that fortress we built together was stronger than we knew, and it still protects me. This anniversary reminds me of that, and that’s a very good thing.

Memories of impending memories

Today Facebook served up yet another "Memory" (image above), one that I knew was coming, of course. In fact, I talked about it when another "Memory" popped up back in September. The thing is, what all this refers to is, in fact, a happy memory, but, obviously, tinged with sadness. Then, two days later, there's another one.

What I said today on Facebook sums up what I'm thinking/feeling:

The anniversary tomorrow, and another very important anniversary two days later, makes me sad. I knew this would happen, of course, so I was “prepared” to feel bad over the next few days, but, knowing a bad patch is coming never makes it any easier to get through. I knew that, too.

Most people won’t say that they’re going through a bad patch like I just did. Here’s something you can do to help: If someone pisses you off over the next few days, please take a moment to think about how they may be going through a really bad patch. Even if you’re wrong, kindness to others is always the right thing to do, but if you’re right, it could make a huge difference to someone in pain.

This past Saturday, a week before the anniversary of the day we got married, I shared another "Memory" on my personal Facebook (image below), I didn't share it here, though I'd planned to, mainly because I was a bit preoccupied by my change in prescription, mainly because I didn't feel well that day because of it. But the fact that seven years ago I posted three different times about us getting married is a small indicator of how excited I was at the time. It's also a reason why I'm so sad about the anniversary now.

The next few days won't be good or easy, but: One day at a time. That's been my mantra for more than 13 months now, and for good reason—it works. But I'd so much rather go back to that one day…

Twenty-four years

Twenty-four years ago today, I arrived in New Zealand to stay and began my new life with Nigel. We always used to celebrate this anniversary as our own because it was when “we” began, and that made it important to us. This year’s is the first one without him, and I still have no idea how to do this—create a totally different life than the one we’d planned together. I at least know (hope?) that the next anniversary may not hurt quite as much.

Posts from previous, happier years:

Twenty Three Years Together (2018)

Twenty Two Years Together (2017)

Twenty One Years Together (2016)

Twenty Years Together (2015)

Surreal 19th Expataversary (2014)

Eighteen (2013)

The day that really mattered (2012)

Sweet sixteen (2011)

Fifteen (2010)

Fourteen (2009)

Lucky 13: Expataversary and more (2008)

Twelfth Anniversary (2007)

Eleven Years an Expat (2006)

Related:

Ex, but not ex- – A 2006 post about being an expat

Changing policies and lives – A 2011 post about becoming a permanent resident

12 years a citizen – A 2014 post about becoming a NZ citizen

Foreign-born human – A 2015 post re-examining the word “expat”

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Mixed feelings day

Today I have extra justification for feeling sad: Six years ago today Nigel and I were legally married, which makes this my first marriage anniversary without him. Arriving exactly six weeks after what turned out to be his last day, it was bound to be hard. Thing is, I don’t know what I feel about it.

I don’t think that either of us ever expected to be able to be legally married, not up until it suddenly became legal. When Civil Unions became legal in New Zealand in April, 2005, we didn’t exactly jump at the opportunity. While Civil Unions gave gay couples most of the benefits of marriage, it was NOT marriage, which was reserved for opposite gender couples alone. It was nearly four years later—January 24, 2009—before we got a Civil Union, with a big family celebration, because we’d decided that some legal recognition was better than virtually none.

At the time, the Civil Union ceremony itself was the happiest day of our lives—up until October 31, 2013, when we were married at the Auckland Registry Office. On that day, we became legal spouses and could legitimately use the title “husband” for the first time, something neither of us ever really expected to be able to do.

We chose October 31 because it was the closest we could get to November 2, the date we’d always considered our anniversary because in those pre-legal recognition days the date we started living together in 1995 was a logical one to pick. In 2013, we had a big family party on November 2, which was also our 18th anniversary together.

Anniversaries! Anyone who’s followed my blog knows that every year I’ve marked a string of anniversaries that I came to jokingly call “The Season of Anniversaries”. It began with the anniversary of when I arrived in New Zealand as a tourist (September 12, 1995). When we had our Civil Union, my pretend season extended all the way to January 24. The anniversary of our marriage added another date to that list. Will I continue to mark these dates? I simply don’t know. Probably. Maybe not.

Because six years ago today was such a happy day, and this anniversary is only six weeks after what was the worst time of my life, I honestly don’t know what to feel. Mostly, and most obviously, I’m missing Nigel as I do every single day. However, we didn’t make a big deal out of any of our anniversaries, including this one, though we were always aware of them. If Nigel was still alive, we would have said something to each other about the day, like “Happy Anniversary”, and that would have been it. So, because it was never that big a deal, I can’t be upset about what I’m missing out on today—again, apart from missing having Nigel with me.

One random thought popped into my head, though, as has happened a lot over the past few months since Nigel became sick. Because of when Nigel died, he and I had known each other 24 years, but he died before our 24th anniversary together, and before our sixth wedding anniversary. That means that, technically, we were together only 23 years and married only five. Anyone who knows me in real life will know how much that numeric incongruity will always annoy me, and anyone who knew both me and Nigel would know how much he and I would laugh at that.

But another, sadder, random thought also popped into my head: Six years ago today Nigel and I gained the legal right to call each other “husband”. Six weeks ago I got another title I never expected: Widower. The first was wonderful, but the second is hardest thing I’ve ever faced. It will remain that way for a very long time to come.

So, sad and with mixed (and often conflicting) feelings, all I can think of to say is what I would have said to Nigel if he was still alive: Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. I love you.

Previously, in happier times
Fifth Anniversary (2018)
Fourth Anniversary (2017)
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)

Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

Ten years later

Ten years ago today—a decade ago—we had our civil union ceremony. That meant we were legally joined in the only way available to us back in 2009, though we were married in 2013. But that day in 2009 was the first time we had a proper legal status, so it matters.

The day was extremely hot, something the family still talks about. That year, too, we celebrated my 50th birthday. A decade later, it’s cooler than it was then, and it rained this morning. Also, my 60th birthday party is this coming Sunday. So, things are very different today than they were a decade ago.

All that aside, remembering is important. I often talk about celebrating the small victories, and also the significant things in our life regardless of how “important” some make think they are (which is the reason I have my largely, but not completely, tongue-in-cheek “Season of Anniversaries”). Sometimes things may be more significant than it may seem to others. Last year, I put it this way:

Everything we do in life is connected to everything else, one way or another, and our civil union was the ceremony, our later marriage the finalisation of what happened nine years ago today. And that’s why I remember it every year.

So, that day in 2009 was overshadowed by later events, but it still mattered for its time. There are a lot of events in our lives like that, some if which only we remember. Maybe bloggers have a small advantage in that we have a ready-made way to memorialise the things that were and important for their time, and for what followed. This tenth anniversary is like that.

So, Happy anniversary to us! Once again.

This now concludes the 2018-19 “Season of Anniversaries”. This blog now resumes normal content provision.

Previously

2009: Perfect Day – where it began
2010: One and Fifteen
2011: Second Anniversary, squared
2012: Three years ago today
2013: Fourth Anniversary
2014: An anniversary
2015: Anniversaries
2016: A seventh Anniversary
2017: Eight years later
2018: Nine years later

Ask Arthur 2018, Part 8- About me and my parents

Here we are, at the final post in This year’s “Ask Arthur” series. Such good questions this year—so much so it took me a bit longer to get through them all than I’d originally thought. Better than no questions at all, though, right? I always worry that’ll happen, but so far it hasn’t. Whew!

Today’s first questions are from my friend Andy. His first question:
You recently celebrated two milestones. The first was an anniversary of your move to New Zealand. The second was an anniversary of your marriage to Nigel. I have a couple of questions around these milestones because they represent important events in your life.

My first question comes in multiple flavors, like Neapolitan Ice Cream: "what on earth possessed an American from Chicago to emigrate to New Zealand? What was your decision process, your rationale? Why New Zealand?"

This is the easiest of the two to answer, because, technically, I didn’t choose New Zealand. Instead, as I used to joke, I chose Nigel and New Zealand came along for the ride. Thing is, that’s actually true.

I shared the entire story in 2015, my 20th Anniversary in New Zealand, but the gist of it is that I was originally going to Australia and New Zealand as a tourist, nothing more, but I wanted to make contact with locals who could tell me what to see and—more importantly—what not to see. Nigel was the one I “met” online.

Months later, I came to New Zealand, we met in person, and confirmed that we wanted to be together. However, at the time, the only real way for that to happen was for me to move to New Zealand. Back then, a US citizen could only sponsor a foreign national who was a close family member or their spouse. But marriage for gay couples wasn’t legal anywhere in the world at that time. So, the only way he could come to the US is if he found a job that would sponsor his visa, and that wasn’t very easy to do.

At that same time, New Zealand allowed its citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their same-gender partner for immigration, but there was a very long waiting period, and I needed to find a job that would sponsor my visa, and I did. But we knew that there was a clear path to permanent residence in New Zealand, but maybe not even a possibility of it in the United States.

So, technically, I didn’t choose New Zealand. Instead, it allowed Nigel and I to choose each other, to be together, and to stay together, all things that the USA didn’t do at that time. Fortunately, it all worked out!

Andy then asked:

The second question has maybe "mind-your-own-business" for an answer, but I'll ask it anyway: "Looking back on your lives together, was there a particular catalyzing event or reason that made you decide to get married, and if so, what was that? Was it a gradual decision, or was it impulsive and spur-of-the-moment?"

I have very few limits in these “Ask Arthur” series, and this one was nowhere near one! Marriage was mostly an evolutionary thing. Neither of us were particularly eager to get a civil union when they became available, and for me that was mostly because I saw it as “Marriage Lite”. I didn’t see any particular reason to get a civil union, though it would cement our legal status as each other’s next of kin. When we actually decided to have a civil union, some four years after they were introduced, it was a spur of the moment thing, decided at Christmas at Nigel’s brother’s house—about a month before the ceremony. In the end, we also combined it with my 50th birthday party.

When marriage became possible in New Zealand, we got married (technically, we changed our civil union to a marriage) only a couple months later. We were both keenly aware of how marriage is a big deal, something that most of us grow up expecting to have some day. But it was also something that had always been denied to us. Everyone knows what marriage means, but most people have no real idea what a civil union is.

I don’t think there was any particular thing that made us want to be married, apart from growing up expecting it and knowing it had been denied to us for all our lives (up until when it wasn’t denied to us anymore). I think both of us felt the struggle to win marriage equality, and the energy behind that, and maybe that’s what drove us forward.

The reality, though, is that we waited for several years to get a civil union because we saw little reason to get one, which made the decision to do it a spur of the moment thing. By the time marriage was available, it was something we very much wanted, something whose time had come.

Thanks, Andy!

Today—and this year’s—final question is from Roger Green:

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you walk near? No, wait, that's a Carpenters song.
Tell stories about your parents you've never told before.

I put this one off for a very simple reason: I couldn’t think of an answer. I’ve already told most of the stories I’d share, either because others are personal or not terribly interesting, which is true of most of our own stories, of course.

So, the best I could come up with for my dad is this. After he retired from the ministry, he worked for a time as a counsellor at our county sheriff’s work release program for male prisoners convicted of minor crimes, with an eye toward rehabilitation. Because of that, he came into contact with a lot of young people. He told me about one young man with “LOSER” tattooed on his fingers, and it clearly affected him. At this point my dad suddenly realised the importance of parental love, and that’s the point at which he worked pretty hard at becoming my friend, something I’ve referred to in the past. He even had one of those banal, but still true, bumper stickers that said “Have You Hugged You Kid Today?” he was a one-man crusade in an age when no one was listening.

The end to that particular story is that a new sheriff was elected, and he changed the program to make it tougher, more like jail, so he could cut costs. My dad became little more than a jailer, and he left soon after.

I couldn’t think of any new stories about my mother, since I’ve told so many, except for this (which I hope I haven’t already told): She wasn’t a very good cook. She used to experiment with all sorts of trendy things that were, um, well, terrible. Awful, even. Like the casserole made with saltines and Velveeta cheese. Then there was the time she made two packets of something called a “TVP Dinner” (TVP was “textured vegetable protein”), but she used half the water. When I was a baby she made my cereal and put in salt instead of sugar (she told me that story—I clearly don’t remember it). When we went camping, she made tinned salmon, peas, and white sauce on chow mein noodles. She also made a whole chicken that came in a can. Her standard dishes were awesome, though, and some of them I still make.

Her baking was uneven. She was often too slow to take cookies out of the oven, and occasionally she left out an ingredient. But when she got it right, it was awesome.

All of that was terrible, and still gives me nightmares (well, they don’t, but it would be understandable if they did).

Thanks for the challenge, Roger!

Well, that’s it for another year! Thanks for all the questions, and enduring my answers. See you next year!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-18”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, "Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

Let the 2018 asking begin – The first post in this year’s series.
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 1: Perfect place
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 2: Living where?
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 3: About religious stuff
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 4: About what I like
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 5: About conversion therapy
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 6: About blogging stuff
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 7: About current gay issues

Fifth Anniversary

Today is the sort of anniversary that most married couples acknowledge: Five years ago today, Nigel and I were legally married. It seems a little odd to mention it because we’re so used to being together, and had been for many years by that point. It was still important to us.

The reason we were so used to being together is because by that point we’d been together just a whisker under 18 years, and had been in a civil union—for which we had a big ceremony for 4¾ years. I used to joke that we had the wedding 4¾ years before we were married, but that means asking people to think about the joke, and that’s seldom a good idea.

While it really didn’t change anything about the way we lived our daily lives, it nevertheless cemented our legal place as a family, and it did so in a way that everyone could understand, neither of which was completely true of civil unions or just living together as we’d done for so many years. As I often point out, it made us equal to the heterosexuals in our lives, and that mattered a lot, probably more than I thought it would—until it did.

So, five years ago today, “we achieved the ordinariness that our heterosexual friends and family always took for granted,” as I put it last year. But, to borrow from what I also said last year, to me, that ordinariness doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I’ve spent another year married to the person I love most in this world. And that was what the whole long wait and the struggle for marriage equality was ALWAYS all about.

I often say that love always wins in the end, and it does. But sometimes it needs a helping hand and a whole lot of hard work to help it win. Nowadays, it’ll also require a lot of defensive work to protect what we have from those who would take it from us. Love is worth the hard work. It’s one of the few things in this world that truly is.

Previously
Fourth Anniversary (2017)
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)
Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

The photo up top is of our wedding rings, which I took the morning of October 31, 2013. Unlike most of my other photos on this blog, this one is copyright, all rights reserved. Of course.

Five years of NZ marriage equality

Five years ago today, on 19 August 2013, New Zealand's marriage equality law took effect, and same gender couples were legally allowed to marry. It was an important day for New Zealand. The video above was posted on Facebook by Rainbow Labour in celebration of the day.

As always happens, New Zealand has moved on. I’m sure we have some religious extremists who fantasise about repealing the law and ending marriage equality, but it will never happen. New Zealand has a long history of fighting tooth and nail over an issue, but once it’s decided, the entire country moves on. It’s always been that way, and even our adversaries in that battle—apart from the most lunatic of the extremists—are well aware of that fact. I mention that because it’s by no means certain marriage equality is safe in my native land; in fact, it’s very vulnerable.

So, congratulations New Zealand—and happy anniversary!

Previously:
“Equality arrives” – My post from 19 August 2013
“How the day went” – My post about the day
“What that day meant for me” – My personal reflection on the day
“Husband and husband” – The day we were married

Marriage diversity in the USA

The video above is from National Geographic, and features 17 couples from the Washington, DC area in the USA. The video includes same-gender and opposite gender couples, is often funny, and very informative. It’s frankly not the sort of thing I expect from National Geographic, but maybe that’s why it works so well.

They said about it on their site:

In 2015, 17 percent of U.S. newlyweds had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity. That’s roughly a fivefold increase since 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia made interracial marriage legal. Changing the law was a start—but it didn’t “necessarily do anything to change people’s minds,” says Syracuse University law professor Kevin Noble Maillard, who writes frequently about intermarriage. Partners of different races or ethnicities are nothing new, he notes: “But it’s very different when there’s public recognition of these relationships and when they become representations of regular families—when they’re the people in the Cheerios commercial.

Of course, Loving v. Virginia more accurately made interracial marriage legal in the entire United States, because there were 33 states in which it was already legal, in the same way that Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) made marriage between people of the same gender legal in all 50 US states, but it was already fully legal in 35 states. Worth noting (for me…) is that interracial marriage was already legal in my native state of Illinois at the time of the Loving decision (and had been since 1874), and it had enacted marriage equality before the Obergefell decision, with its law taking effect on June 1, 2014, more than a year before the ruling.

Interested as I am in the spread of the right to marry, all this also interests me because I’m in an interracial/intercultural marriage, something that many people don’t even realise until they think about it. In New Zealand, marriage across races and cultures is common enough, though older people tell me that decades ago it was frowned on. That doesn’t surprise me, considering that while such marriages have overwhelming support in the USA now, as recently as 1991 only about half of Americans approved.

And that’s the thing about social change and prejudice. As I often say, it’s easy to hate people in the third person, those black people, those gay people, those interracial couples, but it’s much harder in the second person, you my neighbour, you my boss, you my child, and you my best friend. It’s a case of familiarity breeds respect.

Even though times are changing, being part of an interracial or intercultural married couple can be a challenge, especially in the USA, or any other society that isn’t fully accepting of the idea. But the fact that societies are evolving to accept them means that I’m sure eventually people will get over the idea of two people of the same gender being married. But, as I was saying yesterday, we’re not quite there yet.

Read the full April 2018 National Geographic article on intermarriage, “The Many Colors of Matrimony” [may be available to subscribers only].

Five years later

Five years ago tonight, the New Zealand Parliament passed the marriage equality bill. Introduced by Labour MP Louisa Wall, the bill attracted support from 71 MPs, and opposition from an antique-minded 41. The celebratory graphic above was posted to Facebook today by the New Zealand Labour Party. It was nice to celebrate.

Naturally, that brought out the “Christian” extremists who never miss an opportunity to tell LGBT people that they’re all going to hell, that their love isn’t “real”, and blah, blah, blah, the usual hatred, bigotry, and fake-Christians messages. It’s profoundly sad that so many “Christians”, pretenders though they may be, think that the perfect day to spread their religion-based hatred and bigotry is on a day of celebration for LGBT people, as if LGBT people would be receptive to such negativity and hatred at that exact moment. To those possibly sincere extremists, apparently, nothing says “Christian Love” quite like telling happy people they’re shit.

This time, at least, the Labour Facebook post was moderated a little, and some of the most bigoted comments were deleted. That was something that wasn’t done in the past, and it was really great to see, even if plenty of other bigoted comments were left.

Meanwhile, marriage endures, New Zealand endures, conservative religion endures—and so does hatred and bigotry against LGBT people. Even so, the biggest survivor of all is love itself. Love triumphed five years ago tonight, and it has triumphed every time a happy couple—gay or straight—gets married. Sure, the bigots of all sorts keep trying to drag us all backward, and down to their level, and, yes, bigots keep society from becoming truly free and equal. But five years ago New Zealand took a giant step forward toward recognising that love is love.

The struggle for marriage equality was always about honouring love. Five years later, the law still is. Hopefully some day the bigots will finally understand that, too.

Nine years later

Today is again the anniversary of our civil union. It was the ceremony we held as we became legally joined in the only way available to us back in 2009. Of course, we were married in 2013, and this particular anniversary sort of fell by the wayside. Still, it was important then, so it’s worth remembering now.

The day of our civil union was very hot. This year, the weather’s been hot, too—though not quite as hot as that one particular day. That’s a good thing, but I couldn’t help but notice the coincidence.

Everything we do in life is connected to everything else, one way or another, and our civil union was the ceremony, our later marriage the finalisation of what happened nine years ago today. And that’s why I remember it every year.

Happy anniversary to us!

This now concludes the 2017-18 “Season of Anniversaries”. The blog now resumes normal, if eratic, content provision.

Previously

2009: Perfect Day – where it began
2010: One and Fifteen
2011: Second Anniversary, squared
2012: Three years ago today
2013: Fourth Anniversary
2014: An anniversary
2015: Anniversaries
2016: A seventh Anniversary
2017: Eight years later

Fourth Anniversary

Four years ago today, Nigel and I were legally married. It was a very big deal then, and it still is now, though we probably take it for granted as much as any other married couple does after four years. But, then, by the time we were married, we’d been together for some 17 years—nearly eighteen. That’s a long engagement! That wasn’t our idea, of course, but despite the delay, we ended up getting an ordinary life.

This particular event is kind of odd in some ways. Marriage came along after we’d been together 17 years—just under 18 years. We’d also had a civil union in 2009 because it was the only formal recognition open to us at the time, though that was also a great day. So when we were actually married in 2013, it changed everything, but it also came sort of the last step.

And, of course, it also added yet another anniversary to my Season of Anniversaries.

The thing is, it didn’t change anything in the way we lived our daily lives, but it added layers of protection that had been missing, even with the civil union. The important thing, though, was that it made us the true equals of our heterosexual friends and family, and that matters far more than, perhaps, heterosexuals can understand.

Today was just an ordinary day: Work, and some projects at home. Then, dinner, some TV, and then sleep to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Because that was really the point of marriage, wasn’t it? To have a perfectly ordinary life, just like everyone else’s. Any of us may end up doing extraordinary things, or not, but it’s always built on the common, shared base of ordinariness.

Four years ago today, we achieved the ordinariness that our heterosexual friends and family always took for granted. And that still matters. But, to me, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I’ve spent another year married to the person I love most in this world. And that is what the whole long wait and the struggle was all about.

Like I always say, love always wins in the end—always.

Previously
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)
Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

The photo up top is of our wedding rings, which I took the morning of October 31, 2013. Unlike most of my other photos on this blog, this one is copyright, all rights reserved. Of course.

Eight years later

Today is the anniversary of our civil union. You could say we had our wedding in 2009, but weren’t actually married until 2013. That delay wasn’t because of bureaucracy, but because of government: We had to wait for politicians to make marriage a reality for us, too.

We were married only a couple months after marriage equality became law. On the other hand, we’d waited several years before getting a civil union. Since our marriage, the anniversary of our civil union has become kind of neglected. We don’t do anything special for it (unless you count my annual blog post) because we pay more attention to the anniversary of when we were married. Maybe that was inevitable.

But I mark the occasion every year, and for a whole lot of reasons. It was a special day, one well worth remembering for its own sake. And, besides, it was one of the hottest days we’d ever had—who could forget THAT?! We all still talk about that, and we remember.

This date eight years ago was very special at the time. To me, the fact we were later married doesn’t change the importance of our civil union, it reinforces it precisely because it built on that day and the memories we made. It all just kind of flows.

And so, I’ll keep remembering it because it mattered, and still does.

Happy anniversary to us!

This now concludes the 2016-17 “Season of Anniversaries”. The blog now resumes normal content provision.

Previously

2009: Perfect Day – where it began
2010: One and Fifteen
2011: Second Anniversary, squared
2012: Three years ago today
2013: Fourth Anniversary
2014: An anniversary
2015: Anniversaries
2016: A seventh Anniversary

New Prime Minister

Today New Zealand got a new Prime Minister, Bill English. He replaced John Key, who resigned as Prime Minister a week ago today. English’s new Deputy Prime Minister is Paula Bennett, currently the MP for Upper Harbour.

English is kind of, well, boring, which he’s actually been able to use to deflect awareness of how conservative he is. The newsmedia always describes him as an “active Catholic”, usually followed by a mention of the fact that the Englishes have six kids (as if the newsmedia is trying to define what “active Catholic means…).

English’s conservative social views have shown up in several votes he cast in Parliament: He opposed abortion law liberalisation, as would be expected, as would his opposition to euthanasia/assisted death. He has also opposed cannabis law reform. But he’s most notable for me for having voted against civil unions, as well as a bill to give broad recognition in law to civil unions. He also voted in favour of a bill to limit marriage to one man and one woman, and then against marriage equality.

Apparently, times change.

Today he held a press conference (video above), and, among other things, he said that if it came up now, he would vote for marriage equality. He said: "I don't think gay marriage is an attack on anyone else's marriage."

This underscores two things. First, as I've often had to remind even New Zealanders, when New Zealand finishes with a "controversial" issue, it STAYS finished. The country won’t revisit marriage equality. Second, I have always said that we should applaud people evolving on marriage equality, and not always hold them to what they once believed. As I said when discussing this in the context of the US election:

I became an LGBT activist around 35 years ago, and back then it was impossible to imagine that ANY national politician would EVER advocate for LGBT people. Yet we kept pushing for them to do so, and, decades later, look where we are!

If for decades we've been pushing for politicians to embrace the LGBT communities and our issues, then we ought to celebrate politicians' evolution and not make a dismissive rankings list based on who supported marriage equality/LGBT issues first/earliest.

That’s every bit as true here in New Zealand as it in my American homeland. So, for me, this is a non-issue. It’s his other positions I oppose, and it's important to note that this doesn't mean he's a friend of LGBT New Zealanders—there may be other issues where he still opposes us.

His deputy, Paula Bennett, is not one of my favourites. While I praised her elevation to cabinet back in 2008, she has since betrayed the people living on a benefit as she once did, and has become mean-spirited and uncaring. I was profoundly disappointed in her performance.

However, since she has leadership aspirations, this could be an opportunity for her to redeem herself, and to become a better MP—and human being. If she doesn’t, she’ll help Labour and the Greens win the next election, so, from my perspective, either outcome is a win. Personally, I’d prefer both, but the second seems the most likely outcome.

So far, Bill has been softening his image as being hard-right on social issues, and that will be helped by having Paula as his deputy: She's younger and capable of being quite affable in interviews (when she wants to be…), where Bill is stiff, awkward, and dry. Maybe.

Pundits are picking we’ll have an early election—possibly midyear sometime, not the least because there are at least two MPs (one Labour, one National) who will be leaving Parliament before the next scheduled nationwide elections in November, and if that’s more than six months out from the elections, it’ll trigger a by-election that costs about $1 million. That, and the fact that people who gat their Party Vote to National in the last election did so with Key as Leader of the party, means that they really could use a fresh mandate.

When and if we have early elections will depend largely on how the new team fares in the polls. Whether they keep their jobs will depend on the same thing.

In this video, Leader of the Opposition, Labour Leader Andrew Little, has a media stand-up in Parliament after English and Bennett were confirmed.



And, finally, John Key leaves Parliament for the final time as Prime Minister, to applause from his National Party Caucus in Parliament. He was on his way to meet with the Governor General for the formal, legal designation of Bill English as the 39th Prime Minister of New Zealand. This is what the peaceful transfer of power looks like in New Zealand.

Third Annivesary

It’s another anniversary: Three years ago today, Nigel and I were legally married. By that time, we’d already been together more than 18 years, and for nearly five of those years we’d been in a civil union. Getting married was important.

As I said last year:

Civil unions provided a way to have some of [what heterosexual married couples got], so I was glad to embrace it. I was happy and proud as I’d always imagined any person getting married must feel—and yet, I was still forbidden to marry.

Two years ago, all that changed in New Zealand, and two years ago today, Nigel and I were married. We’d already had our big ceremony at the time of our civil union, so the marriage wasn’t about that. Instead, it was about finally being welcomed into the family of citizens because we were, surprisingly, unexpectedly, allowed to be married, too, and that changed everything.

I noticed I’d had a shift in my thinking and perception after we were married: It seemed somehow more permanent than a civil union, even though civil unions have laws managing them, too. I think it’s because I grew up around married people in real life and on TV and in the movies. People got married all the time, and sometimes I was even at the weddings, more often I got older, of course. So, I knew what marriage meant. As I said last year, “I’ve always valued marriage, but I think I’ve valued it even more when I finally gained the right to be married.”

In the years since, I’ve often referred to Nigel as my husband—because he is. But sometimes I still refer to him as my partner, probably the most common term in New Zealand, and used to refer to people who are coupled, both married and unmarried. It kind of suits the egalitarian nature of New Zealand.

However, after avoiding the use of the word husband for my first 54 years of life, it wasn't easy to make the change.

When I was younger and newly out, it was very common for gay couples to refer to each other as “husbands”, even though back then there was absolutely no formal recognition of those relationships under law or even by private entities. It was better than the alternatives also used at the time—including boyfriend and lover, which I also didn't like or use—but husband always struck me as empty because it didn’t mean anything in a legal sense.

When I arrived in New Zealand and found they used the term partner nearly all the time, I felt I finally had a term that worked for me. It was specific, implied a strong commitment that boyfriend didn’t, and was meaningful for me in a way that husband hadn’t been.

When the law changed and I could get married and use the term husband accurately, that became a real option for the first time in my life. But in addition to it feeling odd after all that time, and the fact that partner is still the main term used, there was one more thing: Outing myself.

Because of my age, I’ve spent a lot of my life being cautious about how open I want to be about my life. Nearly every single day I have to make a quick assessment about whether I think the person I’m talking to might be hostile, what the risk/benefits are of being open, and whether I even want to be open, given all the unknowns. Sometimes, then, partner is the safer and easier option.

But as times have changed, so have I. Using the word husband outs me, yes, but it also places myself on exactly the same level as the person I’m speaking to and makes clear I expect to be treated the same as everyone else. I’ve never had any problems from using the word husband, but I also never had any problems in the old days when I used the word partner and corrected someone who assumed it was a female—and I did correct them. The good thing about using the word husband, then, is that it’s unambiguous.

We still have two more anniversaries to go in this Season of Anniversaries, but this one is still important. Happy Anniversary to us—again!

Previously
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)
Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

The photo up top is of our wedding rings, which I took the morning of October 31, 2013. Unlike most of my other photos on this blog, this one is copyright, all rights reserved. Of course.