07/25/13: A tale of two marriages

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

I DON’T KNOW how many marriages take place each day in Maryland. But I’m aware of two that occurred on July 11.

After more than 20 years together, Ohio residents James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled to Hanover, Md., and were married on the tarmac at the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Some 120 miles away, two Virginia women were married at the courthouse in Snow Hill, legalizing a relationship that has spanned more than 32 years.

Ohio, like Virginia, prohibits recognition of same-sex marriage, both by statute and by its constitution.

Maryland has allowed same-sex marriage just since January 1 of this year, after voters approved a referendum last November. The state, like many others, has no residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license and makes it easy for nonresidents to get them by mail.

Maryland has not always been so welcoming to same sex couples wishing to marry.

Forty years ago, in 1973, it became the first state in the nation to define marriage as between only one man and one woman. Twenty three years would pass before the federal Defense of Marriage Act became law. Thirty-three years would pass before Virginia’s voters passed their own version.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Windsor struck down the part of DOMA that defined marriage. But it left intact the section that allows states to continue to disregard same-sex marriages performed in other states. Ohio’s – and Virginia’s – position is to continue to not recognize gay marriages, even while recognizing other marriages that would not be legal if performed in those states.

The marriage of the Ohio men carried a sense of urgency. The trip to Maryland was made by special medical transport, because Arthur suffers from the debilitating disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. He is in hospice and is expected to die soon.

Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s decision, the Virginia women just wanted the legal recognition now allowed by federal law.

After each marriage, the newlyweds returned home, where the four were all considered single again.

The men just couldn’t let that happen. They filed for an order of injunctive relief in federal court.

If Arthur’s death certificate were to reflect his marital status as unmarried with no surviving spouse, Obergefell would not be allowed to be buried next to him in the family cemetery.

In a narrow ruling affecting just these two, U.S. District Court Justice Timothy Black said that would cause “irreparable harm.” He ordered that the registrar of death certificates not accept for recordation one that did not reflect Arthur as married and Obergefell as his surviving spouse.

Oh, and that second Maryland marriage? It was mine. Monday’s decision has left me wondering: Will I have to be on my death bed before Virginia recognizes it?