A Near-Marriage Ceremony

Thirteen days ago, we got sorta married.
Well, we did as well as you can do, legally speaking, within the confines of New York City. My boyfiend and I went to the marriage bureau downtown and registered as domestic partners. It’s not like we live someplace civilized, like Boston or Des Moines, where we could get married.
The first big surprise: the New York City bureaucracy not only worked, but it was shockingly pleasant. Everyone we dealt with was professional and speedy and made us feel great about the process, which began online when we pre-registered as a couple. Then we went in and were amazed at how quickly our domestic partnership happened.
We may have been inspired by a recent piece in the Times, in which what seemed like a lovely lesbian couple had a short service to accompany their domestic partnership. We opted out of the service, partly because I liked the whole “elopement” aspect of just the two of us doing this together and partly because we had read that Times piece. In it, the woman representing the city called the women by their last names—and, if I remember correctly, only their last names—and that made the proceeding seem like it lacked warmth.
Now that we’re domestic partners, we’re getting around to studying the rights we have. So far the answers are: not many, and we’d have more if we worked for the City of New York. We’re left feeling a little like second-class citizens in our own town and especially in our own state. The New York Times keeps telling me that Andrew Cuomo was terribly slow to embrace gay marriage here and did next to nothing to push a legal change when he was most needed. I hope he gets a chance his allegedly checkered past on the issue—and that the in the Republican rampage that is coming next week, enough Democratic state senators survive to help make gay marriage a reality in New York State.