The joy and heartache of the Respect for Marriage Act as a polyamorous queer woman.
As I stood with other LGBTQI+ advocates and families on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, cheering President Biden’s signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, I cheered too—but with a queasy mix of relief and pain. I’ve been in the thick of national advocacy for trans, queer, and intersex rights for over a decade. I know LGBTQI+ families needed RFMA in the face of new threats that could revive old forms of discrimination. But wedged into the new law are provisions designed to further humiliate, and prevent recognition of, families like mine—families who are polyamorous. I hope we can hold both of these complicated truths, and work to ensure all families are respected and protected..
As a queer woman who was married for a decade to another woman, I should be glad about the RFMA passing. And I am—it could really protect some people. But I’m also equally, inescapably sad, because the final bill is designed to prevent future recognition of, and to further stigmatize, polyamorous families like mine. That makes celebrating RFMA’s passage with the slogan “Love is love” ring hollow for me.
I have skin in the game here on both sides of this coin—that is, the two categories of families whose rights were traded off by lawmakers—and I hope we can hold both of these truths. My wonderful former wife and I (hi, Ex-Wifey!) got married in Ohio in 2004, two years after my transition. We got a marriage license only after a humiliating process of showing my old birth certificate and misgendering myself on the form. We were perversely lucky for this “loophole,” but always had to wonder if our marriage would be respected in practice in that state and my home state of Kentucky.
But we both were and are polyamorous as well. Today I live mostly with one beloved partner and part of the time with another beloved partner and her wife. Then and now, the knowledge of having to pick which of our relationships receive legal recognition has shaped my life and choices, and created a low background hum of dread that will be familiar to many queer families. Even in our progressive hometowns and social networks, the stigma toward how we build family can be corrosive. We reinforce that when we re-codify that “Love is love” does not include the love in my chosen family. And as families like ours begin to win some forms of recognition in state and local law, we’ll face all-too-familiar fights over whether RFMA will prohibit corresponding federal or interstate recognition.
I realize that these harms seem abstract to those untouched by them, and likely less immediate than the frightening prospect for currently-married couples that Obergefell and Loving could be overturned. I realize, too, that no state today allows people to marry more than one person they love; that a long-dormant 19th century anti-Mormon law makes multiple marriages or cohabitation a federal crime (so, technically I may be felon); and that some promising paths to protecting polyamorous families may not depend on marriage per se. This is all true—but I’m afraid our trailblazing Senator Tammy Baldwin is wrong when she declares merely “state the facts” and “there’s no harm” in them.
We sorely needed protection for those currently able to marry against future erosion of our rights by hostile courts. Maybe we needed it enough to risk present and future harms to other families who still lack legal protections. What’s most troubling is that we never had that conversation. Apparently, no politician, no advocacy group, and no commentator saw a conversation to have. That’s shameful, it’s humiliating, and it’s wrong.
It’s important to recognize the good RFMA accomplishes—even celebrate it, especially if it could mean more security for your own family. If so, I’m genuinely happy for you. At the same time, I hope the real harm RFRMA does will prompt some who are not affected by that harm to reflect on what they can do, going forward, to fulfill the promise that “Love is love.” There is much work to be done to ensure recognition for all types of families, whether through domestic-partner registries, parentage laws, workplace benefits, and other means. I invite you to join us.