Same love, different rights

It’s a Monday evening. After a hard day of work, the couple sits down at the table to discuss the day’s events over a meal they meticulously prepared together.

This could be any couple, gay or straight, living in the same home. The only difference is one can get married and the other can’t.

Joe Windish, lead technical specialist for instructional support at Georgia College, has been in a committed relationship with his partner Doug Keith for, as he puts it, the best 13 years of his life.  The two have considered marriage, but since it is not recognized in Georgia, their home, the couple decided against it.

“I wear my ring on my right hand because, in Georgia, I don’t want to pass as a fake straight person, fake married (person),” Windish said. “Also, since Georgia doesn’t allow marriage then it would be like fake marriage and I don’t want to play fake marriage. So for all those reasons we have not done it.”

Over the past seven years there has been a growing trend of states moving towards same-sex marriage. To date, there are seven states that allow same-sex couples to marry. Among these states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington D.C.  Georgia is clearly not a part of that list. Civil unions among same-sex couples are legal in only five states. Among those states are Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Being a gay couple in Georgia brings with it no governmental benefits. According to the website Nolo: Law for All, same-sex couples do not receive the following federal benefits: social security benefits, tax benefits, estate tax and estate planning benefits, veteran and military benefits, federal employment benefits

and immigration benefits.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, domestic partners in California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington receive “nearly all state-level spousal rights.” Furthermore, Hawaii, Maine, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia all give domestic partners “some state-level spousal rights.”

Windish says that he and Keith pay their health insurances separately and have filed separately on their mortgage, though Keith does have some legal rights.

“I have given him medical power of attorney and living will and all that kind of stuff so we have to have legal documents to protect our rights,” Windish said.

In 1996, the first Defense of Marriage Act was passed in Georgia. In 2004, Georgia courts challenged those laws on same-sex marriage and voted on the issue. During this year a referendum was put out to the voters. According to CNN election results for that year, 76 percent of state voters voted against the amendment to allow same-sex marriage and 24 percent of voters voted for it. The amendment was then placed into the Georgia Constitution that upholds same-sex marriage and civil unions as illegal for the state to both recognize and perform.

Democrat Georgia State Rep. Karla Drenner, who was for the first eight years of her tenure the only openly gay Georgia legislator and for the first six years the only gay legislator in the South, was at the forefront of the 2004 marriage fight. She expressed that she thought much of the opposition in the Georgia House of Representative at the time was due, in part, to her.

“It (the 2004 vote) ran into quite a lot of opposition in the House side and I think that in part was due to the fact that I was there. I wont really say that I was the banner-carrier, but I did kind of defend the role of the opposition and subsequently we beat the bill the first time,” Drenner said. “It died on the floor by three votes, ….we had a floor vote on day 38 and actually lost by two votes.”

This 2004 ban on gay marriage in Georgia was challenged before a lower court in 2006. According to a 2006 article in the New York Times, “In a unanimous reversal of lower court decision, six justices of the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s 2004 ban against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.”

Having this growing trend of states recognizing gay marriage can only strengthen hope for Georgia to soon follow. Georgia State Rep. Rashad Taylor, an openly gay state legislator, says he completely supports marriage equality in Georgia.

“I hope sometime in the future, in the near future,” Taylor said. “I would say I don’t see it, but I do think Georgia is a state that is rapidly changing and some time in the future, hopefully, that will change as well.”

Windish feels that the courts are behind the culture and that the culture is ready for change. He says that the two may consider going to New York , where he lived for 28 years prior to moving to Milledgeville, to get married but he feels that the laws show change in Georgia’s future.

“We might just do it, but I actually can see a tipping point where the anti-marriage movement is going to sort of crumble,” Windish said. “To me, the idea would be to get married when the country recognizes it.”

For the younger generation there is still time and hope that the trend of same sex marriage in states will grow and legislation in Georgia will make marriage a legal option for same-sex couples. Connor Johnson, a sophomore mass communication major, is among those.

“As someone who is openly gay, I have always wanted to be able to get married to someone I’m in love with in the state I have grown up in for 19 years,” Johnson said.  “Although that is still not quite possible, I am happy to see that there is progress in that arena and I hope that one day I will be able to do so here in Georgia. I could not imagine going somewhere else to get married, only to come back and have my marriage not recognized by the state I live in.”