We say we're married too, about 99% of the time, but what about that 1% when it makes a serious legal difference, how you answer?
In Cole's case this morning, she was talking to the insurance company of the guy who hit her. A company she googled and found nothing but evidence of litigation against them for failing to pay. So she was not looking to be cute, feisty or potentially incriminate herself by misrepresenting something and getting called on it in court.
Not that it will probably get that far (we hope), but these kinds of things are trickier than me telling the telemarketer that Cole isn't home, being asked if her husband is home and claiming that I am her husband. (Believe it or not, the telemarketers don't miss a beat when I do that.)
See, I think we need to make more or this. Because we truly are in a weird legal bind of the government's making with the dumb DOMA.
When we were headed up to Canada to marry, I asked Cole "so what if we wanted to marry men in the U.S.? Would they allow it?" Because gee, a bit awkward on that honeymoon to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls, huh? What if I wanted to marry a Canadian man in the U.S.? Would the U.S. let me and then give him residency? What if, what if, what if...
What if you married a same-sex partner in Massachusettes, moved out of state, and wanted to marry an opposite sex partner, then move back to Massachusettes? Which marriage counts? I'd love to see someone test the DOMA by trying to do that kind of thing.
They have created these crazy Catch-22's for us and I'd like to see them answer to them. Basically we're stuck having to not just feel bad that we may need to erase our families on legal forms, but we're stuck lying--especially when our relationships are legally recognized as marriages somewhere.