Straights for gay rights

The L.A. Times reports on straight couples refusing to get married until their fellow citizens have the same right:

Attorneys Kaethe Morris Hoffer and Matt Hoffer Morris married at a Quaker meeting in Hoffer's hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1999. They returned to Chicago. They set up house. But they deliberately refused a marriage license. It was their way of showing solidarity with their gay friends. And, as it turned out, an expensive protest.

They paid about $500 to legally change their names, adopting each other's surnames. They signed over medical powers of attorney to each other. They filed taxes separately and accepted that in old age, neither would be eligible for spousal Social Security or Medicare benefits. When Hoffer left her job to have a baby, she also left behind her health insurance. She couldn't get coverage on Morris' health plan because only gay couples qualified as domestic partners. As a result, they paid an extra $400 a month for health insurance for nearly two years.

Ultimately, they couldn't afford their political stand. So they donated the cost of one year of Hoffer's health insurance — $5,000 — to the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign. Then they flew to Boston and got a marriage license. Their families filled their hotel room with flowers.

"The law is very important to us," says Hoffer, 33, former director of federal affairs for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "If we were both artists, we might have made some different choices about how we expressed our opposition to the relegation of gays and lesbians. Straight people, just as gay people, will have different ways of participating in the struggle."

Inspired by this example, I hereby make the following pledge: I refuse to get married until not only every gay person in the United States can get married--but until every gay person in the United States is married.

No, no. Don't try to stop me. I make this sacrifice.

I still plan to propose to every pretty girl I see when I'm drunk, though. Just don't expect any follow through. Principle, don'cha know.