How the iPhone Ruined My Weekend and Reminded Me That Gay is Not Equal

Some of my husband’s friends and relatives have a problem. They like me well enough, but they just can’t wrap their minds around the fact of my marriage. My husband is still the guy they’ve known from childhood, who they didn’t know was gay all those years. Now, they’ve come far enough to welcome me into their homes. But that doesn’t mean they’ve really learned to accept my role in his life, and therefore in theirs.

We were reminded of this — or, rather, slapped in the face with it — when my husband's iPhone self-destructed. Apple to the rescue. A new phone wouldn't arrive for ten days. Ten days of no phone? Yikes! But he sighed and sent out messages to everyone he knew or worked with. He’d check his messages each night, but meanwhile they should call me if they wanted him outside of office hours.

Hardly anyone called. But his voicemail was full of complaints. “Why aren’t you calling me back? You said you’d check your messages!”

He called back. “Why didn’t you call Cristian?” he demanded.

“Well,” they hemmed and hawed, “I guess I could have, but…”

And there you have it. They could have, but. But they’re not ready to completely acknowledge our relationship. But they haven’t quite made the leap from being friendly to really seeing me as my husband’s other half. They could have, but ...

This experience brought home to me why Federal recognition of our marriage is so important, and why nothing else, not even legalizing gay marriage in every state in the Union separately, will achieve the same ends. As Cynthia Nixon said so eloquently at last year’s March on Washington, “When a country has different laws for different categories of people, it sends its population a message that [the group with lesser rights] are somehow inferior and less deserving of respect.”

That message, that we are less, is heard loud and clear by those who hate us. It’s also heard, as we learned this last week, by those who don’t hate us, but are trying desperately not to change until they’re forced to. The fact that our government does not recognize our marriage gives them permission to ignore it. It helped them feel better about not coming to our wedding in 2008, and it encourages them to stay in their haze of denial now.

Legal recognition will not automatically erase a lifetime of religious training that tells people two men can’t be married. It won’t immediately overcome people’s panic over the fact that the world is changing. But if our country stands up for us and says we’re legitimate, that we and our relationships deserve equal treatment, everyone will hear that. Whether it makes them angry or jubilant, their worldviews will be affected.

And that, my friends, is how change happens. That, and, of course, with my husband’s new iPhone, which arrived today and is ready to fix all problems, everywhere, and raise the consciousness of everyone who comes within ten feet of it. There's an app for that, right?

Photo credit: Gonzalo Baeza Hernandez