By ARIELLA MONTI
While Page, who is gay, isn’t married, he said that one day he hopes to be. An activist, a psychotherapist and the founder of a dating service called Deeper Dating, Page has an 8-year-old son, David, whom he adopted from Cambodia, and he said David is already aware of the prejudice against homosexuals.
A bill that would legalize same-sex marriage is now in limbo in the state Senate, which has been locked in a power struggle since June 8. Gov. David Paterson, who supports gay marriage, vowed on June 21 that the Senate would bring the issue to a vote before it recessed for the summer. “As I’ve seen it play out, separate is not equal,” said Island Park resident Dorothy Jacobs. While Jacobs has been married to Carol Keating for the past five years, New York state did not recognize their marriage, which was performed in Toronto, until Paterson signed an executive order instructing all state agencies to change their policies in May 2008.
Like many same-sex couples, Keating and Jacobs have a stack of paperwork that includes health care proxies, living wills and other forms to ensure that each is taken care of in case of an emergency involving the other. Keating and Jacobs say they are looking to obtain the same legal rights and protections as straight married couples who do not have to go through so many documentational hassles.
“We are looking to gain rights that we don’t presently have as a family,” said Jeffrey Friedman, a Rockville Centre resident. Friedman and his husband, Andrew Zwerin, were married last October outside Los Angeles. The high school sweethearts adopted a son, Josh, about six years ago.
Like Jacobs and Keating, Friedman and Zwerin have a file two inches thick filled with legal papers. When Josh needed to be taken to the hospital, his parents found out that despite all those documents, he was not fully protection. While Josh was treated, Friedman said, “They never finalized his admittance into the hospital because they were looking for Josh’s mother.” Friedman and Zwerin are listed as Josh’s legal parents on his birth certificate, but the couple was forced to produce the adoption papers as proof. “As a parent, when your child is having trouble breathing, there is absolutely no need to show proof who my family is,” Friedman said.
While Malverne couple Robert Powers and Howard Costa have no children, they said that as they get older, they want to make sure they are both taken care of. “I want the same things that my parents had and Howard’s parents had,” said Powers, who married Costa in a quiet ceremony in New Canaan, Conn., last December. “The benefits of a marriage are better than a civil union.”
Even though Powers and Costa are legally married, Costa is listed as Powers’s domestic partner under his employer’s health insurance policy, similar to non-married straight couples. Unlike married couples, however, domestic partners are taxed for this benefit. Powers also had to wait for an “open enrollment” period to add Costa to his policy, unlike a newly married heterosexual spouse, who is added automatically.
A legal marriage would also ensure that assets the couple share remain with the survivor after one of them dies — like the home Powers and Costa purchased almost four years ago. Powers noted that their previous home in Kansas City was not filed correctly, and had Costa died, it would have gone directly to his family.
“All marriages are civil unions,” Jacobs said of the differing terminology, “but all civil unions are not marriages.”
Asked how they felt about the public outcry against the Senate bill from officials of the Catholic Church, like Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Jacobs responded, “We’re not talking about religion, we’re talking about rights.” She added that she felt that the line between religion and government was starting to blur.
“Why isn’t he outlawing divorce?” Friedman said of Murphy. He and Zwerin are active members of Rockville Centre’s Central Synagogue, and he added that he never had any intentions of being married in the Catholic Church. Powers, who grew up Catholic, said he understood that the church is trying to hold on to tradition, but things need to change. “The Catholic church is trying to interfere with a legal aspect that’s nonreligious,” he said. “I think our politicians need to realize what’s good for the people … an institution like a church or an insurance company should not control the laws and ordinances that are decided by the people.”
Page, of Long Beach, said he believes that family, friends and spirituality are the most important things in life, adding that those who do not believe in same-sex marriage do not have to change their views. “To deny those things to a person is like denying them the very reason for being alive,” he said. “What we ask for is not that they change their mind, but that they simply allow for religious freedom for those of us that do believe in same-sex marriage.”
All three couples said that not allowing same-sex couples to marry violates their civil rights, and all are putting pressure on their elected officials, like state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), to support marriage-equality legislation. “Why do certain few people hold our future, even our rights, in their hands?” asked Costa. “It seems so unfair that some old boys in Albany get to decide how we live.”
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