I am a gay man in NYC. My partner Rusty and I have been together for 8 years. I use the term "partner" because, here in New York, we are not allowed to marry. That may change if we can ever get the Republicans out of power in the State Senate, but for now, it is the reality.
I often see it asked, however -- and this, by persons whom I know to be well-meaning and supportive of recognition of same-sex relationships -- why it is necessary to push for "marriage". Why, it is said, aren't civil unions, or domestic partnerships, or some other arrangement sufficient? Why must we antagonize people by pressing for full entry into the institution of marriage?
I could answer this is many ways. We could talk about the inherent repugnance of "separate-but-equal." We could talk about the absurdity of creating new legal institutions just for the purpose of marking same-sex relationships as different. But today, I'd like to talk about the actual, real-world, practical issues. As a court decision of yesterday demonstrates, the denial of same-sex marriage rights affects our lives in real ways.
Meet John Langan.
(Let me tell you more after the jump.)
John lost his partner of 15 years, Conrad, to a stupid car accident and has been fighting ever since to obtain recognition of his status as surviving spouse. They had a civil union under Vermont law. But the New York courts have now, for a second time, told John that the life he and Conrad shared mean nothing -- nothing -- in this state. All because they could not get "married."
John and Conrad met in 1986. They fell in love, the moved in together after 8 months, and they spent the rest of Conrad's life together as partners. (Details of their lives together -- which I urge you to read -- are here.) Conrad was, like myself, a lawyer here in Manhattan. John was an insurance agent. Apparently, at least early on, Conrad was the main financial support for the couple. (Yeah, we lawyers are way overpaid, I agree.) They were, in any case, financially interdependent -- as most married couples are.
John and Conrad took every step they knew how to formalize their relationship and care for each other. They appointed each other Health Care Proxies. They made wills. They took out life insurance naming each other beneficiary. They took many steps which, had they been married, would have been unnecessary because the law has built-in provisions. But no matter, they did what they could.
In July 2000, Vermont instituted civil unions, and within weeks John and Conrad began making plans to be so united. On November 11, 2000, they flew to Vermont and were joined in front of their family and friends. They exchanged rings. They exchanged vows:
I [Neal Conrad/John Robert]
Take you [John Robert/Neal Conrad]
To be my spouse in our civil union,
To have and to hold from this day on,
For better, for worse,
For richer, for poorer,
To love and to cherish forever.
They were, in short, as close as they could then get to being fully married. (Massachusetts did not institute marriage until 2004. In any case, New Yorkers cannot go to Massachusetts to get married, thanks to Mitt Romney's revival of a bigoted law meant to prevent mixed-race marriage. But that's another story.) But they were not "married."
On February 12, 2002, John got a call from St. Vincent's, a Catholic hospital here in Manhattan. Conrad, the doctor said, had been hit by a car and had a fractured leg. But Conrad was able to speak to John and tell him he was OK, but that he needed surgery on the fracture. John raced to the hospital, but by the time he got there Conrad was already on his way in. Conrad's brother had beaten John to the hospital, and gave John a copy of a note that Conrad had left for John:
John:
I'm going under. I haven't had a chance to see you.
I love you.
I've made my life in your heart.
Conrad
John stayed with Conrad over the next 2 days, as Conrad went through another surgery to close the wound. All seemed well; doctors thought Conrad would be heading home soon. On the night of the 14th, John kissed Conrad good night; Conrad said, "Goodnight my sweetheart." Those were the last words Conrad ever said to John. The next morning, St. Vincent's called John to tell him Conrad had died overnight, apparently due to a blood clot.
John was, I'm sure, grief-stricken. I tell you, I read that note from Conrad before he went into surgery and think about what if that were one of the last things Rusty ever said to me, and tears start streaming. Any married couple -- well, any couple still deeply in love -- would feel the same, I think.
Now comes John's legal travails. John believed that St. Vincent's had committed medical malpractice. As the surviving spouse -- at least, he thought he was -- John was entitled under NY law to sue St. Vincent's for wrongful death, and he did. But even though the doctors and nurses at St. Vincent's had treated him like Conrad's spouse, now the lawyers (and the Catholic Church) were involved. John was not Conrad's spouse, they said, and thus he cannot sue. In 2005, in a particularly stupid decision, the intermediate NY appeals court (the Second Department) agreed with the hospital.
Now, in Vermont, John undeniably would have had the right to sue, because Vermont purports (as required by its Supreme Court) to give civil union partners the exact same rights as married couples. And New York would generally, under the doctrine of "comity," give recognition to a marriage validly performed elsewhere, even if the couple could not have married in NY. But none of that mattered, said the court:
[John and Conrad] opted for the most intimate sanctification of their relationship then permitted, to wit, a civil union pursuant to the laws of the State of Vermont. Although the dissenters equate civil union relationships with traditional heterosexual marriage, we note that neither the State of Vermont nor the parties to the subject relationship have made that jump in logic. In following the ruling of its Supreme Court in the case of Baker v State (170 Vt 194, 744 A2d 864 [1999]) the Vermont Legislature went to great pains to expressly decline to place civil unions and marriage on an identical basis. While affording same-sex couples the same rights as those afforded married couples, the Vermont Legislature refused to alter traditional concepts of marriage (i.e., limiting the ability to marry to couples of two distinct sexes) (see Vt Stat Ann, tit 15, §§ 8, 1201 [4]). The import of that action is of no small moment. ... In essence, this Court is being asked to create a relationship never intended by the State of Vermont in creating civil unions or by the decedent or the plaintiff in entering into their civil union. For the same reason, the theories of full faith and credit and comity have no application to the present fact pattern.
In other words, yes, you have under Vermont law the same rights as married couples, but you're not married. Game over.
Now, fast-forward to yesterday. Under NY's workers' compensation law, a suriving spouse is entitled to death benefits when an injury occurs on the job. (Conrad's accident occurred while he was doing work for John's insurance business.) So John applied for benefits. The worker's compensation carrier accepted the injury as work-related. But -- you guessed it -- they argued that John was not Conrad's "spouse." And yesterday, another intermediate appellate court agreed.
Now, again, there is absolutely no dispute that New York would consider someone married in another state to be a spouse for purposes of the workmen's comp laws here. But the court said, hey, they're not married, they're civil union partners:
Vermont considers parties to a civil union to be "spouses" under that state's law and provides them with all of the benefits, responsibilities and protections of spouses to a marriage, including workers' compensation benefits (see Vt Stat Ann, tit 15, § 1204 [a], [b], [e] [9]). But even under Vermont law, such parties are not part of a marriage (see Vt Stat Ann, tit 15, § 1201 [2], [4]). While parties to a civil union may be spouses,and even legal spouses, in Vermont, New York is not required to extend to such parties all of the benefits extended to marital spouses. The extension of benefits entails a consideration of social and fiscal policy more appropriately left to the Legislature. We therefore decline to recognize, as a matter of comity, all of the legal incidents of a civil union that Vermont law provides to such parties in that state.
John and Conrad were as loving and devoted as any man and woman, and quite a bit more than much of what passes for valid marriages in this land. They did everything within their power to formalize and validate that relationship. And John only sought what any surviving spouse -- trying to carry on financially after the death of his husband -- would be entitled to. But because all John and Conrad could get were "civil unions" -- and not "marriage" -- the doors of this state's justice system have been twice slammed in John's face. And that term "justice" leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth as I write this.
That, my friends, is why nothing short of marriage will do.