A very happy wedding day to Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who will marry today at 5:01 p.m. Pacific, after waiting over 50 years. Two other plaintiffs in the marriage case, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, who got the ball rolling for the lawsuit when they were denied a marriage license at the Beverly Hills Courthouse in 2004, will also get their license tonight in the selfsame city. (Martin and Lyon will receive theirs in San Francisco from Mayor Gavin Newsom.)
Marriage is all over the news and likely to remain so all week. I particularly like this article on New York Governor David Patterson, and the straight people who are thanking him on behalf of their daughters and sons for his recognition of out-of-state wedded same-sex couples. I also think it’s cool that the California ruling is boosting the sales of a company that makes same-sex cake toppers. (The company was started several years ago by an African American woman who could not find a cake-couple for herself and her fiance, a Japanese American man.)
Lest we forget, too: marriage isn’t the solution for everyone. Read Nancy Polikoff’s well reasoned Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law
Finally, the title of this post is very deliberate. It’s not just a comment on geography, but a nod to Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful,” who lived for 25 years with fellow Wellesley College professor Katherine Coman in what is commonly called a “Boston marriage.” (When students and alumnae sing this song at Wellesley, we always change the last line of the first verse to “. . . and crown thy good with sisterhood.”) As we move forward into a future of increasing equality, it’s good not to forget the past.
Congratulations to all the same-sex couples about to marry!