19 Years Ago Today I Fell In Love: January 12, 1991

On Saturday January 12, 1991 I met my future husband for the third time--it was our first date. We walked along Venice Beach and talked and talked as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean and then went back to his place, which was (conveniently!) just a few blocks away. This was during my first trip to Los Angeles when I was visiting my sister and I was leaving the next day to go back to graduate school in upstate New York. The smooth talker convinced me that since he lived so much closer to the airport, I should spend my last night at his place, and not my sister's. We drove over to USC and got my luggage and returned to his place to "play boggle." (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

19 years later we are registered as domestic partners with Occidental College (May 12, 1995), the City of West Hollywood (March 22, 1996), the state of California (January 14, 2000). We are also civilly united in the state of Vermont (August 8, 2000) and legally married in the state of California (August 8, 2008).

As people consider the legal arguments over whether gay people have the right to marry in a courtroom in San Francisco, I wanted to put the somewhat esoteric discussion down to what it means, in practical terms, for real life gay people who are (and have been) living their lives right now.

I listed all the documents that we have entered into to demonstrate that these are the legal hoops that gay people have to go through to maintain our relationships against an unrelentingly hostile and unsupportive world.

It all started 19 years ago, today.

I love you, Dean Elzinga!