“The Kindness of Strangers”: My Same-Sex Wedding Story

In 2010, five years before the Obergefell decision, same-sex marriage was not legal in New York, my home state, but honored out-of-state marriages. My partner and I talked about marrying, but actually, we were ambivalent about engaging in such a ritual. After all, wasn’t marriage really as much about ownership as it was about love, and who needs the state defining or legitimizing their relationship anyway?