Let Freedom Ring

After 14 years of shacking up, Nettl and I are finally getting married.

When I first came out in 1976 I never even considered marriage as an option. It was so far out there (and I was still such a hippie), I never considered marriage to anyone, female or male. But at the end of the millennium I started reconsidering things. Marriage? Yes, I was ready for that whole pipe and slippers thing... well, not the pipe, you understand. But even the idea of marriage wasn't open to me. Never had been, never would be. It wasn't a deal, I just accepted it like I accept that I'll never be able to publicly smoke a hookah in Cairo. It didn't bother me, it's just the way it was. That changed, however as the 2000's progressed and now, guess what? Marriage equality has been passed in Oklahoma.

What? Me surprised? Hell, yeah!

We had a holy union ceremony at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Tulsa on May 25, 2001, officiated by an ordained minister and everything. Family, friends, flowers, cake, attendants, the whole deal. Problem was, the papers couldn't be filed because for some reason we were not as equal as other natural-born citizens. Funny. I'd been equal all my life, but that equality was suddenly revoked when I fell in love with the wrong person. We got over it. We paid our taxes and paid into the system, we raised our young and we buried our elderly, but we were never entitled to the rights and privileges other Americans received. We simply weren't "created equal" anymore. But all that changed today. We are at last honest-to-goodness Americans, by golly. For me, it's mostly about taking care of that 14 year-old paperwork; I couldn't feel any more married than I already do.

Do you see that little bulge in my cheek? That's my tongue.

Anyway, the point of this is to announce that we will be heading to the courthouse on October 24th, after which we will come back to Bookends Cottage for one hell of a reception! If you're not on Facebook (where we created an event page) and would like to attend, email me via my Contact page and I'll send you the particulars.

If your marriage suffers on October 24th I'm truly sorry, but really, we have nothing to do with it. If we had that much power don't you think we would have used it by now?