We have been together for 33 years. Sometimes people say, "That's like forever in gay years." The compliment is appreciated, but it sounds like they are saying that gay people don't have long-lasting relationships, which is not true at all. We have met and become friends with many gay couples who have been together as long or longer than we have.

Although we have been together since 1993, we did not get married until 2008 since same-sex marriage was not legal in California until then. And even then, there was only a brief window of opportunity to get married because Prop. 8 passed soon after.

We would like to stress the importance of marriage equality. First of all, there are over a thousand legal rights attached to marriage, plus there are many other societal issues. For instance, many companies will provide health insurance for spouses but not for "significant others." Also, without marriage equality, society has typically considered our relationships inferior, and by extension, it considers us to be inferior.

Gaining marriage equality has been a long, hard fight, but unfortunately our community's vigilance is still needed, especially in the current political climate. For example, one US Supreme Court justice in particular has stated that he wants the current court to reconsider marriage equality so it can be overturned, like Roe v. Wade was.

And so we hope that we can all continue the various struggles for equality — marriage and everything else — that affect our LGBTQ+ community.