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AE: I know you ponder this a bit in the book but I'm wondering, after all you've been through, whether you think lesbians and gays will change the "institution" of marriage?
DS: Nah. The irony is the institution has changed so much over the centuries—changed by heterosexuals—that they can no longer deny us the right to marry. The institution as they've defined it includes us and our relationships. Marriage is a commitment that two people make to each other. The contours of the marriage commitment, or the vows, are entirely up to the two people who make them.

AE: Will it change us?
DS: Yes, absolutely. It will sober some of us up, and it will communicate to gays and lesbians—and straights, too—that gay love can also have a purpose and a point. It's not all self-gratification. A marriage is greater than the sum of its parts; there's more there, when a marriage works, then just two people living together under the same roof. It is, when it works, transformative and, if I may get a little whoo-hoo on you, transcendent. Our relationships have always been capable of transforming and transcending, of course, but we were swimming against powerful currents, a culture that told us that our relationships were inherently transitory, or "less than." That is no longer the case, and that will change us.

AE: Why has an overwhelmingly Catholic country like Spain legalized marriage and we haven't?
DS: Because Spain is in Europe. For centuries Europe dumped its craziest Christians on the North American continent. We live with and among the puritans, while Europe is puritan-free.

AE: You spent $20,000 on an anniversary party? Are you crazy?!
DS: I'm not. My boyfriend is.

AE: The rush to Canada that some expected isn't happening but more and more queer couples, like you, are crossing the border to marry there. How do you think that affects the U.S.?
DS: Well, if things get truly awful down here for us—if the Republicans succeed in amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, or if adoptions by gay couples are banned nationally, or if they come after the kids we already have—more of us will choose to move to Canada. My boyfriend and I have discussed it at length. And we're serious. I'm waiting for the first gay couple from, say, Virginia, to head up north and claim asylum.

AE: Do you think queers co-opt more wedding traditions—for example, a lot of straight women are refusing to do the garter thing while lesbian couples are doing it, rather tongue in cheek—because of some ability to subvert or validate or to feel normal?
DS: It's weird. We can inhabit some traditions, in a camp way, that straight couples can't. We're gently sending up the rituals even as we employ them strategically.

AE: Besides the skull ring and the missing border papers, what about your wedding would you change?
DS: Oh, everything and nothing. I wish I hadn't have had a splitting headache during the service, and I wish we had, you know, consummated our marriage on our wedding night. But it was what it was, and in hindsight it has a certain sweet desperation to it. I certainly wouldn't want to do it again, like, have a big wedding with everyone we know watching us exchange vows. I like that it was just us, just the three of us, and, of course, three Canadians we'll never see again.

AE: Your six-year-old loves Iron Maiden? What’s up with that?
DS: I don't know. You would think a kid with gay dads would be into musicals, not old metal. But he likes what he likes.

AE: Are you surprised, at this point in your life, to be living the life you have?
DS: Absofuckinglutely. I came out in 1980. I'm surprised that I'm still alive, frankly, much less living with my kid and my... my... husband. Ugh. I still can't get use to saying that word. I still call Terry my boyfriend, only now DJ corrects me. "Daaaaad," he says, "he's not your boyfriend. You're married now." It's ironic, isn't it? Words and rituals that feel a little off, stuff that feels like it doesn't quite fit, will seem completely natural to kids DJ's age. We grew up without any of these rights, and they'll always feel a bit spangly to us. But for DJ, and for gay kids growing up now, boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls will be a normal part of the adult world.

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