Who'd known? Never in a hundred, thousand, million, billion years did I ever expect to have the legal status of 'married.' For 12 years, Anne and I have been legally joined in a Vermont civil union — we had our holy/civil union in August 2000, a month after civil unions, a radical act indeed, became legal in Vermont.
Time went on, other states moved to marriage equality, Vermont came on board, too, but the legislature did not automatically convert pre-existing civil unions to marriage.
So, ten days shy of our 12th anniversary of our holy/civil union and in our 23rd year of being together, we had lunch with six dear friends, talked all about General Convention, the state of the church, peace concerns (notably Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq) and just enjoyed one another's company. We all sat outside on a screened porch and one of the household cats periodically came out to try to catch bugs.
In the course of the afternoon, Jane, who presided at our holy/civil union signed our license, thereby dissolving the civil union (a bit odd, I'd say) and converting our status to being married in the eyes of the state of Vermont. And then we toasted the whole day, the twelve years, the 22 years with some Gruet champagne.
Does this change our status with the Feds? Of course not. Anne will continue to pay 20+% in taxes on any medical reimbursements I receive because in the eyes of the Feds we are not related.
But she and I know we are related and more. And we know it. To celebrate, tonight we had Bierzo, special wine that reminds us of the Camino de Santiago.
6 comments:
Mazel Tov! Congratulations! May your marriage, as your partnership, have MANY more years of happiness!!! Bless! :-D
Many thanks. The adventure continues. Stay tuned.
What a beautiful post! Even though I knew about this yesterday, your words here have me all teared up.
So much love to you! And I must get to meet Ann one of these days!
Congratulations! How wonderful! And many blessings for the years to come!
Wishing both of you many, many blessings for years to come. And prayers for your future! Love to both of you and the felines!
Susan Kay wrote this and I hit the wrong button and accidentally deleted it:
This is WAY late since I tend to hang out more on FB -- just many congratulations and a thought on those pesky taxes on health care stuff. I don't know the details of what you two are getting screwed on but you should know that person A can pay for unlimited health care expenses for person B without tax consequences AS LONG AS payments go directly to health care provider. No recognized relationship required. We pay for health care expenses for my late husbands son and there are no tax consequences -- as long as we pay the bills rather than reimbursing my step son. Don't know if this helps but hope it may
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