Last month, on our return trip from Paris, French authorities routed me to one security line and Clyde to another. The security agent asked me, “Is this your bag?”
I looked down to be sure. “Yes.”
“Then why,” the security officer asked, narrowing his eyes, “does it have the name Clyde on it?”
“I’m traveling with Clyde,” I said. I pointed to Clyde. “He must have my bag.” Not far away, I saw Clyde, who appeared to be undergoing the same interrogation.
“Then this is not your bag,” the security officer said. “And your bag has not been under your control the entire time you’ve been here.”
I was not amused. “We’ve been together the entire time we’ve been here, until we were directed to different lines.”
They made us switch bags. (Clyde, bless his heart, had mine because it was heavier.) Afterward, the guard asked me, “Is this your bag?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“That’s what you said last time, isn’t it?”
This week, as we re-entered the United States at the end of our Germany excursion, Clyde was randomly selected for special screening. Because we aren’t related, I wasn’t allowed to go with him, or wait for him.
Behind a set of glass walls, a security officer opened the one small suitcase Clyde carried. “How long were you gone?”
“Six days,” Clyde said.
The officer looked at the contents of Clyde’s bag: two shaving kits, two pillows, and a trinket or two. “Where are your clothes?”
“I’m traveling with my partner,” Clyde said. “All the clothes are in his bag.”
This is not a situation the security officer cares for much. The scrutiny increases; meanwhile, Clyde worries what will happen if one of the officers notices that the medicine bottles in the shaving kits all have my name — and not his — on the lablels.
Meanwhile, I’m on the U.S. side of Customs, waiting for Clyde. Minute after minute passes. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where he’ll come out. I don’t know what’s going on.
Neither incident would have happened if the U.S. allowed people like me and Clyde to marry.
– When you enter the country, you are asked, “How many family members are traveling with you?” A husband and wife can count each other in this answer; Clyde and I cannot.
– When you go through passport control, husbands and wives can go through the line together; Clyde and I cannot.
– If one member of a husband and wife team is routed for special screening, his or her spouse may go along. When one of us is pulled aside, the other can neither accompany him … or know what’s going on until it’s over.
We endure things like this all the time for one simple reason: our government balks at recognizing the validity of our relationship.
When I talk about wanting marriage rights, I have no interest whatsoever in redefining the word family. I have no interest whatsoever in having a priest in some church shake a bloody chicken foot over my union and pronounce me a married man. I want no part of forcing Mr. or Mrs. Southern Baptist to accept me into their church. My desire for marriage isn’t a part of a plan to “legitimize” my relationship (because, in my eyes, the relationship is already legitimate!).
Instead, I want marriage rights for one simple reason: protection. I want my partner, Clyde, to have the full protection my life partner is due, in every situation we encounter, period.
Until this is the case, people like us will be second-class citizens in our own country. Unless you’re part of a same-sex couple, you have absolutely no idea how disempowering and threatening that feels.
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