9 Replies

1. tio Chaguin Mar 2nd 2010
   

   After living for as long as I have, one has many stories and they all weave into each other, creating a rich tapestry of one’s life. To me, what it takes to form a marriage, regardless of gender, is a state of mind….I know that the fight today is about “the paper and the legality and the rights and responsibilities that come with legal marriage.”

   I agree that everyone should have the equal right to “legally marry”, this is including the LGBT community and to benefit from all the “accompanying rights” that such a legal act can bestow…like IRS, as well as health and life insurance benefits, property rights, etc…..but I also am keenly aware of the edge of such a legal instrument …the division of property…, the legal labyrinth of paperwork that ensues if the marriage collapses i.e. alimony (in California) and child support…(if children are involved). Therefore legal marriage is not something to jump in lightly. “let’s get married…just cause we can.” Well, once it happens, and it will …nationwide… the divorce rate will be skyrocket and a trail of legal battles will follow. There will also be many beautiful untold stories of great love that will echo through time. I firmly believe that for every action there is a ripple in the lives of everyone on this planet.

   Life for me is like traveling in a wide complete circle..there is a starting point and the final return to the “starting point”. Some people see life as having a beginning and an end…but after experiencing what I have, I think that we go back to where we originated..to God and Heaven.. I am currently exploring my spirituality and leaning toward Judaism…(another story) which has as it basis…”leaving this world a better place then when we found it” and that we need to “atone for our own deeds.”

   My story will ramble but I will try to be as coherent as I can. Ron and I met quite by accident at a club named the 4001 (gays often used “the clubs” as meeting places and the centers of all gay social life)..at least then ( the year was October 1980 (the pre AIDS era)…I even remember the exact date October 23rd. It was a “happy hour” with hundreds of people partying and dancing (as you can imagine) with lights flashing and the blaring, pulsating lights and sounds on seemingly non ending music; The mixes of the major disco divas blasting through every speaker in the house. I kept returning to the serving bar for my favorite drink…scotch and soda (for 25 cents each) imagine the level of alcohol pouring at this events. I was socializing with a guy which I had recently met from of all places…Cotulla…he had graduated from Texas AM as an engineer and was a real looker.

   To keep the it in historical perspective it was the end of the seventies and the beginning of the 80’s…an era marked with the concept of divine decadence, unabashed and conspicuous consumption, and the beginning of “It had to be designer” mentality.. like $50 Calvin Klein jeans…(it sounds cheap now compared to Lucky Jeans and Armani, but then it was way tooooooo much.) Everyone that could was found partying in mega divine hedonistic palaces of pleasure which abounded not only in Dallas, but around the world…discos like the Old Plantation (Dallas),4001, and Studio 54, Roxy’s, Regine’s, Galaxy 21,and Heaven in NYC (one of my favorite playgrounds).

   I had recently arrived in Dallas…after having lived in New York for about 2 years (another story), I thought of myself as “worldly and urbane”.

   That night quite by accident I met this a 24-year-old 6′2″ tall north Texas Cowboy…with completely opposite experiences to mine (I was 34, ten years older). He was shy, courteous, with the warmest smile I had ever seen, and what a charmer. So I said “much later” with the engineer and “hello” cowboy…ha ha ha. (I later found out that he had been married, divorced and had a 1-year-old daughter…which his x wife had). He told me that he had suppressed his being gay and finally could not continue live a “straight” life.
   As for me…I never even considered it…but I caught hell for this decision….( yet another story)

   We hit it off and within a few months, we were rooming together and more ha ha ha.. This only was the beginning of a whirlwind of fantastic life experiences (from the beautiful and fantastic to the darkest, most painful), which I would not trade for the world.

   I perceive myself as a very cautious person. I like to assess all my options and take a long to make decisions, considering all ramifications as well as homebody…and he (I was soon to learn) was a person who threw all cares to the wind and a risk taker and a go getter….He was a Libra and I am a Cancer…well the reason I mention this is because once you read the basic characteristics of these signs you will understand. Overtime, I have become a firm believer in Zodiac sign tendencies. This combination is bound for a bumpy, yet exhilarating ride, and the part of our life journey that we shared.. was.

   Eight months later, as I was coming home from work, he met me in the apartment parking lot and announced that he had a surprise for me…”What is it?” I asked…and he just said..”Come with me..and you will see”. We drove to downtown Dallas. To make a long story short, he had leased an apartment on the 23rd floor of a downtown high-rise with a breathtaking view. When we got to the apartment, he opened the door and all of the furniture and clothes were already in place. I was shocked as you can imagine. “We can’t afford this”…”yes we can..I just got a raise”. Well, I thought to myself with much trepidation, he is crazy..but what the hell..it was a done deal…we might as well live out the lease. (this was “so not me”)

   Our stay at the high-rise was fabulous. We did so much together, I have to say that we really clicked. We became globetrotters ( I introduced him to the adventurous world of travel..and he took like a duck to water..first, Mexico City, Oaxaca,Huatulco, Vallarta, Cancun, Cozumel, New York, Key West,P-Town, Chicago, San Francisco, and Vancouver.
   Then I gave up the educational field and we opened a travel agency…actually two..one serving the gay community and one to serve the Latino community. Business went well, and we traveled even more..to Paris, London, Calais, Amsterdam, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan, Copenhagen, Munich, Switzerland and even Berlin during the tearing down “the Wall”. Then we took many cruises as part of the business to such cool places such as Antigua, Puerto Rico, St. Kits, Aruba, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, and Belize.

   In 1986 we bought a house…not my idea…ha..ha…and this started a learning journey and our own DIY lifestyle…Oh, I couldn’t even use a screwdriver at first…then I learned…I learned the basics of electricity, plumbing, painting and carpentry. Enough to say that today…I could be a DIY consultant..ha ha ha..

   We also started a still existing organization called Couples Metro Dallas. It was a part of a national organization to provide a positive venue for gay couples to get together in activities other than the bars. We (Ron really was the catalyst) realized that the only venues to socialize for gay couples were the bars…so we set up a group that would meet and have like pot luck dinners, outings to local museums and galleries, and trips. It has now become an international organization with annual conventions around the world. We nurtured this organization from 1985 until 1996.

   Aids come to our lives as a part of the gay scene. We thought we were immune…or at least I did..since we were a monogamous couple…but this was shattered when Ron had a minor fling at a local bathhouse(unbeknown to me) while I was at a conference in San Antonio in 1991. Six months, later, he began to get night fevers and we thought he should get to the doctor, since they were not going away. The night before the doctor’s appointment he told me about the bathhouse…and the possibility that what could be wrong could be HIV. My world went into chaos…I went through every emotion that one can go through related to one’s own mortality. I went through shock, anger, sadness, disbelief, etc. Well, we went to get tested and he got a negative reading..what a relief.(Needless to say, I got tested as well) I can’t tell you the anxiety and tension that I went through waiting for the results. They were negative as well (Hurray)..we blamed a minor virus….but 3 months later the night sweats began again and he was tested again..this time the results were positive…the results devastated him and sent both of us into a severe depression. At the time(1991), it was a death sentence. I too got tested and the results came back, but the doctor said I wasn’t out of the woods, yet..I had to test every three months for two years. We talked and he said he would understand if I chose to go my own way and leave him…I thought about what he said…and to me there was no choice. Yes, he was my partner….but he was also my best friend…how could I turn my back on him during his darkest moment. I told he that he would not get rid of me that easily…I with you always..I said..

   Ron at the age of 34 began his battle with HIV/Aids from 1991-1996. The world in which we lived had a drastic axis change. It was no longer made up of great trips and fun soirées. Instead our world became flooded by a barrage of strange pills, continuous doctor visits, sleepless nights with nausea, unexplained weigh loss, hospital stays..weeks in a row, months on end, wheelchairs, weekly physical and mental therapy, and making plans for end of life decisions, hospice talks, and burial plans. Concurrently, during this time, before Ron’s death we both experienced grieving for the death of more than 60 of our own friends and acquaintances. It was a horrific holocaust concocted in a nightmarish world of the worst ways to die that lasted for years. It seemed that I went to a funeral at least every other week. I volunteered to relieve family members at the hospital during their deathwatch. I have seen death arrive to my friends and loved ones in the most horrific of ways. I have seen a vast majority of my peers, and friends die way before their time…such great lives lost. When Ron died on December 21st, 1996 at 5:31 A.M. in our home (that what he wanted), the hospice nurse called me from the kitchen, where I was drinking a cup of black coffee…with a good friend that was with me during this difficult time…she came and said you better come to the bedroom ..it is nearly time…I felt like my legs had become like marsh mellows, but I didn’t wince or shed a tear…. I sat near his bedside, holding his hand…and talking to him…telling him it was ok to go…that I would be ok and so would he. “It will all be alright. It is ok to go…and then he smiled and the monitors went flat…….I suddenly was allowed to participate in a small but beautiful miracle…..And upon the very instant that Ron died, I said to my friend, Frank who was standing behind me…I said “Frank, you won’t believe what I am seeing….even if I told you it was the truth”….he said, “I see something that looks like wavy heat lines leaving his body from the center of his chest”…I responded…”Yes, that is exactly what I am seeing”….It was an ultimate moment. I believe we both witnessed his soul departing his body.

   For me this took me from conceptualizing the possibility of considering that we have a soul….to the point where I have no doubt whatsoever about the existence of our soul. (keep in mind that very secular when it comes to religion.) But I have to tell you….this is one of the most important things that Ron taught me through his death….I was allowed to witness his soul departing his mortal body…a life and spiritual experience that I shall never forget and now share with you.

   Christmas day was horrible…our tree was up.I had a present for him(a pair of silk pajamas) and then I discovered a small box from him to me. In it was a small man’s bracelet with an engraving inside “To my beloved friend forever”. I could barely hold back the tears. Losing him was the most emotional pain I had experienced. We buried him on December 26th…a cold wet dreary morning. To this day, I miss the best friend I have ever had. Often I go to the gravesite. His headstone reads ” Goodnight, Sweet Prince” ..Shakespeare’s line

   As a post note…my father died five months later, and then my mom two months after my father….Needless to say I was a basket case for sometime…Bereavement and grief take a long time and they take their toll. I almost went under…but time heals…

   I tried to share in a brief story a very significant part of my life…..
   I tried to show that to marry is to embark on a complicated life journey with another person that will test the very fiber of not only oneself, but of the very essence of human dynamics. It is a journey full of exciting adventures, treason, forgiveness, rage,fear, love, lust, tragedies,mishaps,and ultimately death and lonliness. But one of the pearls of wisdom that I have been able to gleen for all of this is that when entering any relationship…you must enter with the idea that it is a journey where you must maintain your own identity. Don’t buy into the the concept of finding your other half….for you are whole one (we are born alone and you will die alone) looking for someone who sees themselves as one whole..another person cannot complete anyone else..we should be completely independent. and willing to share….not be completed…nor emotionally needy.
   And be prepared for the unexpected at any moment.

   So I hope that my story helped…

   Con todo carino,

   Tu tio Chaguin
2. Anonymous Feb 26th 2010
   

   A friend agreed to allow me to post her thoughts on the subject of marriage:

   “I was married to the same man until he worked himself to death and had a heart attack at 51. He left me with 7 children to take care of. Marriage is a big commitment, much bigger than most people understand. Now, I like being alone. I have been alone almost as long as I was married. I like doing what I want when I want to do it. I haven’t missed marriage much, to be honest. I think marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s the way God intended it to be. The gay couples I have known seem more committed and loving than many of the married couples I know. I think its because they choose to be together, not because they are locked into a contract. But marriage is between men and women. If gay couples want to be committed to one another and share legal assets, it should be called something else but not marriage.That’s just what I think. I don’t have anything against gay couples, I think they have every right to exist and have the same legal rights but I think marriage is about a man and a woman.”
3. Anonymous Feb 25th 2010
   

   My mother married her first husband at 18 because she was pregnant with my brother. They divorced when I was two years old. Over the next 18 years, she married and divorced four more times. I have a long list of step-siblings, half-siblings, former grandparents and extended family. (We are all friends on facebook HAHA.) Needless to say, my role models for marriage were not very good. When I met what would become my husband, I immediately was drawn to his traditional upbringing, his lack of virtually any skeletons in his closet. He had a good education, a good job, he didn’t drink much or do drugs, and he was kind. I believed he would be the perfect husband, better somehow than I was. I really thought he was wonderful, that I was lucky to have him. We married after four years of dating and starting having children right away. Two children later, our lives seemed chaotic. I wouldn’t say I was unhappy, rather I was complacent and overwhelmed. I had no modeling of what a good marriage should be and because my husband and I had fun together on our evenings away from the kids, I thought the boredom, the lack of intimacy was just part of being married. I began to suspect that my husband wasn’t happy being married to me but I brushed it aside. I focused on taking care of our children and simply getting through the day. When I was eight months pregnant with our third child I came home and discovered him in bed with a good friend of ours. I had the children with me that day and reacted in a robotic, unemotional way. I simply got what I needed and left again. I later learned that the affair had begun 18 months earlier. I spent the first month after the discovery feeling completely devastated. I gave birth to our son and began to try to figure out what I should do, whether I should stay in the marriage or get divorced. My husband never wavered from his devotion to me and our family and repeatedly asked me to stay and try to work things out. He cut off all contact with his lover immediately. We began marriage counseling and I made the commitment to give the marriage a year. A year later, I decided to give it another year. Although the pain of the betrayal was still strong, there were glimpses of a deep and important bond. The lessons I learned from counseling and the hours my husband and I spent talking about what had gone wrong in our marriage, are too numerous to list. In a nutshell, I learned that I had played a role in the affair. I had focused on my own happiness, simply going through the motions of being married. I thought marriage just meant staying married. I had a circle of good friends but my husband wasn’t one of them. When I needed an ear, I turned to my friends. When I wanted to go and have fun, I always chose to call a friend rather than call a sitter and go out with my husband. We rarely spent evenings talking and staying connected. The only parts of myself that I gave to my him, were the worst parts. When I was grouchy, pissed off, unsatisfied or depressed…I gave him all of it. The best parts of me went to my children, friends, and my extended family. He went to work and came home to a wife who didn’t seem happy to see him and only wanted to talk about what was wrong in their lives, with him, and the kids. Life took over and we both neglected to love each other the way human beings need to be loved. It has been five years since the affair was discovered and I rarely think of it now. I am honestly glad it happened. I don’t think the deep and intense friendship I have with my spouse would have been possible had we not been forced to re-evaluate our priorities. We have had to choose each other, with full knowledge of our faults. We do not have a perfect relationship today. We have ups and downs, we backslide into old behaviors. The major difference now (and we have a really great marriage now) is that we know that the relationship takes constant work and maintenance. Complacency is the death of marriage. There are days when I don’t feel like being married to him, where every word he says makes the hair on my arms stand up. But I am quite aware at those moments that the hair on his arms is standing up when I speak as well. And yet he loves me anyway. (a few hours later) I believe a good marriage is a choice. It is a choice to look at your partner and see all of the wonderful parts of that person instead of the slightly annoying traits they might have. Focus on the good stuff and you get more good stuff. When you give love, you get love back. And respect. And when you do that, you can be happy being married. I suspect you can be happy forever. Not everyday, but most days.

   The reason I tell you this long and deeply personal story is because I am convinced that marital happiness has nothing to do with gender. It has to do with love. It has to do with choosing your partner over and over again. Bad marriages are easy. Good ones take work and devotion. And that has nothing to do with gender. It’s because of the near loss of my own marriage, that I think I know what I am talking about.
4. Dena Warneke Feb 21st 2010
   

   I love my husband, Mike, who I’ve been married to for 22 years. Love is a
   choice, not a feeling. Love is patient, it is kind. It does not envy,
   does not boast, it is not proud. Love is Agape love that comes first from
   loving and having a personal relationship with the one who is love, God
   himself. When you keep that connection with the one who created all
   things and us, love flows to others, including your spouse.

   Twenty-two years ago, I made a commitment before God to stay married to
   this man until death. Marriage is when two people become one. Marriage
   is something you have to work at. It is not a fairy tale where everything
   will be perfect. Forgiveness and commitment are very important! It’s
   giving of oneself for the other.

   Dena
   Dena Warneke
5. anonymous Feb 19th 2010
   

   What is the meaning of love and marriage? I’ll tell you about my experience with love and marriage:
   I grew up with “Leave It To Beaver,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” and “Father Knows Best.” Marriages were happy. Wives were good mothers and homemakers who greeted their husbands with smiles every evening. Fathers were good providers, who paid the bills and exuded wisdom and patience in family matters. My mother and father were not exactly “Ozzie” and “Harriet,” but they did love each other very much; and as far as I could tell, their marriage was a happy one.
   I did get a college education, and even went on to graduate school. That’s where I met my husband. I got married in the “Age of Aquarius,” when liberated women were expected to work rather than be “just” housewives, which would have been fine, all things being equal. But all things are rarely equal. The Vietnam War was raging. My husband had been drafted and joined the Navy to avoid being sent overseas. It worked, but we moved around a great deal; and I had to take whatever short-term jobs I could find. Money was scarce, but we were seeing a lot of the country. We were young and in love; it was a happy marriage.
   The first child came as my husband was completing his degree and looking for a permanent job. The second child came three years later. Equality was left even further behind. I was working full-time, raising two kids, doing the laundry, the cooking and whatever house cleaning I had the strength or energy to manage (which wasn’t much), while my husband somehow had time to read the paper and watch TV, while eventually failing in his chosen field. The marriage was no longer happy, but we had children and struggled on. I still believed children needed a stable marriage and both parents.
   Who knows how or why it happens? Maybe it was a combination of outside factors and internal dynamics, or maybe it was lack of money with increasing responsibilities. He started with being missing one night every week. Then two nights every week. Eventually, he rarely showed up, except to drop off laundry. And married or not, the damage to the children from the strains in the marriage was already occurring. The last straw was a note tacked to the kitchen bulletin board with a huge bunch of unpaid bills. The note read: “You pay these. I don’t live here any more.”
   The “sanctity” of marriage? How many marriages, even in the ‘50’s, were really held as sacred and remained happy? It’s a rare commodity. So when you do find two free-minded, consenting adults who are truly in love, why disparage it? Why limit it? Why deny it? Love should be celebrated as the rare blessing that it is. Marriage should be that celebration.
6. Anonymous Feb 19th 2010
   

   I was pulled over by a cop tonight for the first time in my life and couldn’t help but think about the law. I had ran a stop sign, and after an excrutiatingly long (actually 5 minute…) interrogation and evaluation of my license and registration I was sent on my way with just a warning. I narrowly escaped the long arm of the law..but as I drove home, thinking about how lucky I was to be spared, I began to think about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to narrowly escape a law preventing me from marrying another man. And that’s kind of more important to me than a stop sign…So here’s the deal:

   My government, in essence, has guaranteed me a bill of rights. But my government has also stated that running a stop sign is against the law; that I cannot do certain things because they will hurt other people – they will disrupt the stability of a society that has been carefully maintained in the name of peace. It’s like I live in America – it’s my home. I’ll obey traffic laws and pay the tickets, but this kind of overt oppression against a group of people is, I’m pretty sure, against the constitution.

   I am just wondering what threat I pose to this stability. There are states that are writing ammendments to their constitutions making gay marriage illegal. Where is the possiblity of me hurting someone or disrupting the stability of our society by getting married? What would same-sex marriage do to America? I’d like some concrete evidence that if I got married to another man that there would be a dangerous outcome. But there isn’t any evidence or logical claim that gay marriage should be banned. There’s fear though and that’s a powerful drug.

   Having the right to marry is a big deal, but the struggle to get that right really just reveals the tip of the iceberg. There are too many places in America, a place always billed as a home to diversity, where diversity isn’t welcome. There needs to be a place for everybody whether you agree with them or not on an idealogical level. That’s what makes America a home and not just a place where people co-exist. There has to be a sense that everyone belongs to the same place for America to work and for it to honor what it was founded on.
7. Anonymous Feb 16th 2010
   

   Who do you love? How do you love? How do you define marriage?
   Are you in love?

   Marriage – defined for me – is any consenting ADULTS who wish to be together, to join their lives in every way.

   Gay Marriage should definitely have legal status in this country – in the world for that matter. I have many many Gay friends who have been happily “married” for years and that they are discriminated against is terrible.

   Marriage is very very difficult as the years go by. That is why the people who are joined in marriage should be old enough to understand what they will face. It has nothing to do with sex or lust. That may be a component initially, but the marriages that last should be defined by the understanding that you become a family: with or without children, you are there for the other person or persons in financial and emotional terms. It really does become a business in a way after the years go by. So it must be understood as such.

   The idea of having children marry – as in the case of some religions which marry young girls to older men – to me is what should be questioned! I am talking about adolescent girls marrying older men in religious cults.

   But Gay marriage is just like straight marriage. It should have no lower or less legal status and it insults the intelligence of most of this country when a small minority is so vehemently opposed to it. Ridiculous Bigotry !

   One of the longest lasting marriages and the best that I had the honor of knowing was of two Gay friends who were there when one died after 24 years of being together. That was love; they were there for each other and shared their life and last minutes of being a couple together.

   One of the worst that I witnessed was my parents: two straight people in which the wife was abused and put up with it for many many years until the husband died. Why? For the sake of the children, for fear of being alone, because it was less painful than leaving in a way. And yet, they were considered the legal married couple. They were considered the wonderful loving family that could be open with their relationship.

   Being in love is entirely a different matter. One can be in love with the person or persons that one marries,but the definition of that love changes. It may mean being close and sexually fulfilled at first; later it may mean being there to advocate for that person in times of illness or in their career, it may mean being there to share with the experience of raising children, or a mutual love for some outside interest – like art or some sport. It may mean being there to hold hands when one is very old. It may mean being there at the other’s funeral and mourning for that soul.

   Love does not have to include marriage. It may be fleeting, it may last forever.

   Marriage should not be a life long commitment if love suddenly is not there. Or perhaps the definition of marriage then changes. Instead of being in love,one merely respects and cherishes the presence of that other person. That too can be a marriage. The importance here is that BOTH INDIVIDUALS or those in the marriage all agree and understand the changes and are willing to still be a part of this new idea of marriage.

   Perhaps you have noticed that I also define marriage as more than two people. Yes. If they are CONSENTING ADULTS and want to be together, then it should not be driven underground. Again, this should be between adults who understand the implications of such a commitment.

   I sometimes wonder if the medieval marriage ideal wasn’t better. After all it is a legal contract and love is an emotion which is so delicate that the rest is forgotten until it is too late to truly understand the life long commitment – the COLD reality of such a situation. I believe that everyone should be LEGALLY made to undergo counseling and have legal nuptial terms drawn up before the wedding.

   This may be a cliche: but to be in love is to feel your heart leap for joy at even the mention of that other person’s name, whether it be the first few months of a relationship or the 50th year of sharing your lives . That is love.

   Anonymous
8. Shelly Barrientos Feb 16th 2010
   

   From Facebook

   I was watching The Joy Behar show last night, I can’t stand her but find myself tuning in constantly, and she had 2 guests on her panel that were married to prisoners who were doing life for murder and other violent crimes. Made me think of serial killer Ted Bundy and his very public prison wedding with all the media h…ype. So this has me thinking…do violent crimminals have more of a right to marry as opposed to a loving gay couple? Is it more accepted and respected in a government and in our society? (confused face)
9. Gene Elder Feb 15th 2010
   

   “TALK< TALK< TALK, All this talk about marriage is working my nerves. When Bush Comes to Shove, Make the Right Move. The majority of Texans said "No" to same sex marriage. (as well as nationally.) And if all this talk wants to become action then there needs to be more interest in advocating the Wedding Cake Liberation Front. Legal action didn't do it. Political Action didn't do it. Religious talk didn't do it. So why not put art to work. Have Wedding Cake Fun Raisers and try that approch. That is my idea of Theatre of the Oppressed working for social change. As Tim Lapping says,"Think outside the FOX."
   Gene Elder, HAPPY Foundation
   However no one listens to me. So why start now."

Leave a Reply