Mawwiage

We're still in California, probably through the weekend, and I just had a long discussion with my mom about the movie "The Kids Are All Right," which I (and everyone I went to see it with) thought was terrible and just plain bad. I could go into it in further detail, but the gist is that a lesbian couple has kids with an anonymous sperm donor, meet him when their daughter turns 18, and then one of the lesbians starts sleeping with the donor, starting the slow motion disintegration of their family. It could have been a great movie, but instead it just reinforced all those stereotypes that don't help anyone - that lesbians just need a man to satisfy them, that meeting the donor will destroy the family and cause the lesbian moms to lose control, etc.

But, I have to admit that, for some reason, and probably combined with the Prop 8 ruling from California, that the whole thing made me think about marriage. (Or, mawwiage, like that hilarious scene from the Princess Bride!) I keep hearing about gay families in which the kids ask their parents at some point if they really love each other, because if they did then wouldn't they be married?

Well, we tell our kids that we are married. We have photos of our wedding up in our house and we've talked about how we got married because we love each other and wanted to make a life and a family together. They're way too young to understand that our wedding took place outside the law, or to even understand what laws are, really.

I just can't stand the idea of telling them that we're not married, because, in our minds, we ARE. I don't know how we're going to explain it to them when the truth has to come out. That's something I want to protect them from for as long as possible, but, at the same time, I'd rather they hear it from us than from some kid at school.

I wish Oregon and the feds would get their acts together soon, so that I don't have to explain to our kids that Mommy and Mama aren't really married after all because it's not allowed. And then to have to answer their questions about why. Really, it makes me feel sick to think about. Our family seems so normal to all of us and it's hard to think about breaking that bubble for the kids at some point in the relatively near future. Bleck.

At least they'll never have to ask if we really love each other because we're not married, because we obviously had a wedding and are married in our hearts and in the eyes of our community. It's just those pesky laws that are keeping us from finishing the process!