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| Edie Windsor Gave Me My Wife. And My Life. | |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| I will never forget the morning of June 26, 2013. I was in the living room of my apartment in Los Angeles when my girlfriend told me, “We won.” | I will never forget the morning of June 26, 2013. I was in the living room of my apartment in Los Angeles when my girlfriend told me, “We won.” |
| We cried. We turned on the news. We sent texts. We cried more. We got back in bed and took selfies of our joy and disbelief. | We cried. We turned on the news. We sent texts. We cried more. We got back in bed and took selfies of our joy and disbelief. |
| We had speakerphone conversations with our parents, then arguments about needing a break from the phone. And we stared at the now iconic photo of 84-year-old Edith Windsor running down the steps of the Supreme Court, arms held above her head, pink and orange scarf billowing in the breeze like some kind of knight who just vanquished a dragon. Edie, who died Tuesday, was our knight. A white-haired knight who swore a lot and was partial to pearls. | We had speakerphone conversations with our parents, then arguments about needing a break from the phone. And we stared at the now iconic photo of 84-year-old Edith Windsor running down the steps of the Supreme Court, arms held above her head, pink and orange scarf billowing in the breeze like some kind of knight who just vanquished a dragon. Edie, who died Tuesday, was our knight. A white-haired knight who swore a lot and was partial to pearls. |
| Two days after the court ruling, which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, I asked Cameron to marry me. She said yes — for me, a win on the level of Edie’s — and became my fiancée, though we both preferred to call each other Beyoncés. We do the same job, standup comedy, and we spent those two years traveling the country doing shows together: I opened and she headlined. | Two days after the court ruling, which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, I asked Cameron to marry me. She said yes — for me, a win on the level of Edie’s — and became my fiancée, though we both preferred to call each other Beyoncés. We do the same job, standup comedy, and we spent those two years traveling the country doing shows together: I opened and she headlined. |
| I didn’t keep an accurate track of how many cities and towns we played over those two years between Edie Windsor’s victory and June 26, 2015, when marriage equality became the law of the land, but it was a lot, at least 100. Some towns and cities were in states or regions that had passed religious liberty acts, which allowed for employers and service providers refuse to serve, employ or rent to people based on the sexual identity (or people they might think were L.G.B.T.Q.I.A., for that matter) so long as that identity was against the employer, service provider or landlord’s religion. Audience members would wait to meet us after our shows and thank us for making them laugh because they drove three hours from downstate Indiana or rural Texas. One woman came to our show in Ft. Wayne, Ind. She told us she really needed the laugh that night because she had just been fired for being gay. How did she know that’s why she was fired? Because her employer told her. | I didn’t keep an accurate track of how many cities and towns we played over those two years between Edie Windsor’s victory and June 26, 2015, when marriage equality became the law of the land, but it was a lot, at least 100. Some towns and cities were in states or regions that had passed religious liberty acts, which allowed for employers and service providers refuse to serve, employ or rent to people based on the sexual identity (or people they might think were L.G.B.T.Q.I.A., for that matter) so long as that identity was against the employer, service provider or landlord’s religion. Audience members would wait to meet us after our shows and thank us for making them laugh because they drove three hours from downstate Indiana or rural Texas. One woman came to our show in Ft. Wayne, Ind. She told us she really needed the laugh that night because she had just been fired for being gay. How did she know that’s why she was fired? Because her employer told her. |
| As a community, we would spend the next three years celebrating wins, like the repeal of the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which guaranteed the right to marry regardless of sexual identity, but also dealing with near daily attacks on our rights in “smaller” arenas, like North Carolina’s “bathroom bill.” Every time our community leapt forward, it would feel undermined by 10 smaller steps backward. Then Orlando happened. The attack on one of the Florida city’s gay night clubs, Pulse, left 49 dead and 58 wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. | As a community, we would spend the next three years celebrating wins, like the repeal of the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which guaranteed the right to marry regardless of sexual identity, but also dealing with near daily attacks on our rights in “smaller” arenas, like North Carolina’s “bathroom bill.” Every time our community leapt forward, it would feel undermined by 10 smaller steps backward. Then Orlando happened. The attack on one of the Florida city’s gay night clubs, Pulse, left 49 dead and 58 wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. |
| Four days after the attack, I flew to New York to play a benefit show for Hillary Clinton. Cameron had been booked, too, but we decided she would stay home in Los Angeles to finish editing our television show “Take My Wife,” which was to have its premiere a month later. It was (and is) the first sitcom created by and starring an out, married queer couple — a show that would have been inconceivable without United States v. Windsor. | Four days after the attack, I flew to New York to play a benefit show for Hillary Clinton. Cameron had been booked, too, but we decided she would stay home in Los Angeles to finish editing our television show “Take My Wife,” which was to have its premiere a month later. It was (and is) the first sitcom created by and starring an out, married queer couple — a show that would have been inconceivable without United States v. Windsor. |
| I had enough time before the show to go to the Stonewall Inn, where a crowd had gathered to mourn Orlando. I hugged strangers and wept openly. I listened to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and thought of all the people, my people, gunned down in a club where’d they come just to dance with someone who loved them. I thought of all my brothers and sisters and siblings who, throughout history, had come in and out of the door of the Stonewall Inn, many of whom were never able to come out and lead full lives, let alone marry the person they love. | I had enough time before the show to go to the Stonewall Inn, where a crowd had gathered to mourn Orlando. I hugged strangers and wept openly. I listened to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and thought of all the people, my people, gunned down in a club where’d they come just to dance with someone who loved them. I thought of all my brothers and sisters and siblings who, throughout history, had come in and out of the door of the Stonewall Inn, many of whom were never able to come out and lead full lives, let alone marry the person they love. |
| That night at the benefit, which was organized by a lesbian-run political action committee, I met some my heroes: Marsha Warfield, Kate Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell and Alison Bechdel, who told me the first gay bar she ever went to was in my hometown. I had heard that Edie Windsor was there and at the after party, I spotted her from across the room. In that moment, I felt that same connection I had felt earlier in the day at Stonewall. Edie was more than a hero for me and young L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. people across the country. She was a matriarch in our ancestry; a strong branch in our family tree. | That night at the benefit, which was organized by a lesbian-run political action committee, I met some my heroes: Marsha Warfield, Kate Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell and Alison Bechdel, who told me the first gay bar she ever went to was in my hometown. I had heard that Edie Windsor was there and at the after party, I spotted her from across the room. In that moment, I felt that same connection I had felt earlier in the day at Stonewall. Edie was more than a hero for me and young L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. people across the country. She was a matriarch in our ancestry; a strong branch in our family tree. |
| I immediately noticed how tiny she was. She reminded me of my own grandmother, who had passed away at 88 years old, a tough woman who had been pushed down — she literally lost inches — on account of the burdens she carried. I realized how much weight Edie carried in her life, through the 42 years she spent engaged but not legally married to her love, Thea Spyer, who died of multiple sclerosis in 2009. I noticed she wore running shoes: a fitting choice for a woman who never seemed to stop moving. | I immediately noticed how tiny she was. She reminded me of my own grandmother, who had passed away at 88 years old, a tough woman who had been pushed down — she literally lost inches — on account of the burdens she carried. I realized how much weight Edie carried in her life, through the 42 years she spent engaged but not legally married to her love, Thea Spyer, who died of multiple sclerosis in 2009. I noticed she wore running shoes: a fitting choice for a woman who never seemed to stop moving. |
| Her partner, Judith Kasen, grabbed me and asked me if I wanted to say hi. I told her I could tell Edie seemed tired and ready to leave and that I didn’t want to bother her. She told me it was no bother. We chatted for a bit, about the show and other things. Judith told me that during my set Edie leaned over and told her I was her type. I am sure I turned as red as the scarf Edie wore on those Supreme Court steps three years before. | Her partner, Judith Kasen, grabbed me and asked me if I wanted to say hi. I told her I could tell Edie seemed tired and ready to leave and that I didn’t want to bother her. She told me it was no bother. We chatted for a bit, about the show and other things. Judith told me that during my set Edie leaned over and told her I was her type. I am sure I turned as red as the scarf Edie wore on those Supreme Court steps three years before. |
| Judith introduced us and I shook Edie’s hand. I showed her my wedding ring and said “thank you.” She beamed and said something to me, but I don’t remember what because my brain was too busy realizing I was standing next to Edie Windsor. We took one photo together, she and Judith left, and I wandered over to some friends that had come to the show, stunned that I had just met the woman who gave me my television show, my marriage and my life. | Judith introduced us and I shook Edie’s hand. I showed her my wedding ring and said “thank you.” She beamed and said something to me, but I don’t remember what because my brain was too busy realizing I was standing next to Edie Windsor. We took one photo together, she and Judith left, and I wandered over to some friends that had come to the show, stunned that I had just met the woman who gave me my television show, my marriage and my life. |