The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (20 page)

January 1, 2009:
Recognition of full rights for same-sex marriages begins in Norway.

May 1, 2009:
The Swedish Parliament adopts a new, gender-neutral law on marriage, making Sweden the seventh country in the world to open marriage to same-sex couples.

June 5, 2010:
Portugal legalizes same-sex marriage.

June 11, 2010:
A unanimous vote in Parliament legalizes same-sex marriage in Iceland.

July 22, 2010:
Argentina becomes the first country in Latin America and the tenth country in the world to allow same-sex marriage nationwide.

February 23, 2011:
Under the direction of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder announces that the Justice Department will cease legal defense of DOMA, which it has determined to be unconstitutional.

June 24, 2011:
Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the state of New York. New York City Mayor Bloomberg marks the occasion by officiating at the wedding of two of his aides.

February 7, 2012:
A federal appeals court declares California's Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage, to be unconstitutional. This clears the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as 2013.

February 13, 2012:
Washington becomes the seventh state in the U.S. to allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

Joe: Why would a guy want to marry a guy?

Jerry: Security.

—Some Like It Hot

T
HIS CHAPTER
is about the period immediately preceding and following the moment when one of you decides that this wedding stuff is for you and you're ready to act on it. You know: The Engagement. Because for some,
engagement
is a silly word that conjures up images of bygone eras—cucumber sandwiches and white-gloved debutante balls—we tried and tried to come up with an alternative term, to no avail. (Imagine, two gay people not being able to come up with an alternative.) So if you feel like it, go ahead, call it “The Engagement.” Or, if you prefer, “Not the Engagement.”

We can't give you any hard statistics to back this up, but we're pretty sure that most gay men and lesbians do not “save” themselves for the wedding night. Chances are that if you're gay and you decide to have a wedding, you're already living together. This is also a fairly common, almost expected practice in the straight world these days. Some couples even look upon moving in together as the beginning of the engagement, because it's when they're preparing for the ultimate commitment. And if you're gay and in a serious relationship, with no current option of legal marriage (at least in most states), living together is what you do.

If you do live together, your lives have most likely already melded in some areas; you have friends in common, and you've probably met most of the people that your partner considers important. So maybe you sorta-kinda think of yourself as married already. You may have gone to other weddings together; you may have made oblique references to marriage in the past; you may have actually said that if you were ever to get married, this is the person you'd do it with. But now that you're seriously thinking about having a wedding, how do you get the ball rolling?