Guest columnist
Gay-marriage battle is about real people

By Barbara Steele
Special to The Times

Barbara Steele

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I met my partner Beth in February 1977, when she applied for a position at the job-training center where I worked. Almost overnight, we fell in love. We liked and admired each other so much. We would stay up all night, night after night, hungry to hear each other's stories. I felt as if my soul had found home.

Then in August of that same year, Beth pulled the car over one night as we were driving along the interstate and read a letter asking me to marry her. I accepted. Dime-store rings were all we could afford, but I've never been happier than I was pledging my heart to Beth on the shoulder of the highway with my kids asleep in the backseat. We considered ourselves married from that night on. In time, "my kids" became "our kids," and we built a family.

Throughout the years, we've supported each other through the ups and downs. We put one another through school. Beth nursed me through three major surgeries. I helped her survive losing a job. She helped me survive losing two of my brothers. At various times, our house has been home to several grandkids (four with disabilities), sons and daughters-in-law, my mom and Beth's dad. Together, we nursed Beth's mom as she was dying of lung cancer; and somehow, with the support of our loved ones, we survived our youngest child's death in a car accident.

After 27 years together, we have 11 grandkids, one great-grandson and the countless memories of good times and bad.

On our 20th anniversary in 1997, we decided to celebrate our commitment to each other once again, this time in the presence of 175 dear friends and family. Paying homage to my African-American and Catholic roots and to Beth's Jewish lineage, we jumped the broom, shared "a sign of peace" and stood under a chuppah (a Jewish wedding canopy). Two of our grandchildren read from "The Velveteen Rabbit." Our two surviving parents lit a candle and declared their support.

It was a magical, wonderful day for the two of us. And I think it was a real turning point for some members of our families who hadn't quite understood our relationship before. They suddenly got it that ours is as deep and respectful a love as any could be. In fact, after the wedding, some people started celebrating our anniversary who never had before. But despite that momentous event and the embrace of our community, we still lacked the legal rights of a family.

Consequently, we've had to pay thousands of dollars over the years for wills, living wills, durable powers of attorney and even for a "relationship contract" — all the legal protections money can buy. But you can't buy equality.

When our granddaughter was born premature, Beth was almost excluded from the neonatal intensive-care unit, because she wasn't recognized as a grandparent. We've been required to pay extra when we rented cars and when we joined WeightWatchers because we weren't considered family. Most recently, we learned it would cost us several thousand dollars a year extra to buy long-term-care insurance because we aren't considered married.

We know we're as deeply committed and connected as any other couple. We finish each other's sentences. We're each other's most trusted critic and best friend. We are each other's life.

But even though we've paid into Social Security our whole adult lives, we live with the scary knowledge that if Beth dies first, I won't be entitled to the widow's benefits that any other widow would get. And one final indignity: I won't even have the right to obtain her death certificate from the government to which we both have been paying taxes all these years. The law considers us strangers, not next of kin.

Beth and I are working — along with seven other couples and several volunteer attorneys — to change that. We're plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in King County earlier this year, seeking a civil marriage license. A judge held a hearing in our case this week.

To some people, it provides an interesting argument about the state constitution. To us, after 27 years of being married in our hearts, it represents a chance for legal security and fairness. Equally important, it represents dignity for us and for our children and grandchildren.

Barbara Steele and her partner, Beth Reis, are plaintiffs in a case challenging the constitutionality of Washington state's denial of legal marriage to same-sex couples, a lawsuit brought by the Northwest Women's Law Center and Lambda Legal.