Jim & Bill, Sioux City

My partner Bill and I have been together for 27 years. We have two precious kids, both of whom we adopted at birth. Emily is 11 and Adam is 8. Our family life is ordinary and perfect. We play together, work together, and worship together. We share each other's joys, sorrows, talents, and struggles. Sometimes things are good, sometimes not so good. But one thing that we can all rely on is our love for one another. And we don't need marriage to keep that love alive, or to make us any more committed to one another than we already are. So why do we care about the legal right to marry?

Well, if you're straight, simply ask yourself the same question. The answer is likely to be the same for you as it is for us. Marriage is a legal relationship in our society. Without it, there is no legal protection whatsoever for a gay couple or their family. For instance, I can't include Bill in my health or other benefits at work, so we have to pay thousands of extra dollars for separate health, dental, and other benefits for him. If Bill were my spouse, he would receive any of my pension benefits upon my death, for the benefit of our family. But without marriage, my pension benefits simply evaporate if I die. Most of our assets are the result of years of work and expenses incurred in our home. If we were married, those assets pass tax-free to the other spouse upon death. But for us, the survivor may have to sell the family home just to pay estate/gift taxes that would be due as the result of the law treating gay couples as absolute strangers, even if they have kids together. Sometimes we haven't even been able to get a season pass to recreational activities as a family - we're forced to buy separate passes because we're not "married".

We don't deserve to be treated as second-class citizens, and our family doesn't deserve to be treated as a second-class family. Marriage, and the special legal rights it conveys, is the best way for the law to make the playing field equal for any couple, gay or straight.