Long Beach Couple Awaits High Court Ruling on Gay Marriage

By Samantha Katzman

Angie Hendrix and her wife Jo are celebrating their four-year anniversary, starting a family, and sharing a home, but one thing they cannot do is enjoy the benefits of a legal marriage in Long Beach, California.

Although they are legally married in New York and Washington D.C., the pair, along with LGBT couples around the nation, anxiously await the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on two cases regarding same-sex marriage. The cases question the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8. The rulings could come as soon as Wednesday or Thursday.

 “I just want what everybody else has. I want the ability to marry the person I love and commit to for a lifetime,” Angie said Tuesday.

 The outcome is especially important to the couple now. Jo is eight months pregnant with their first child.

 “The fact that we’re now having a child brings an entirely new element into it in terms of our parental rights. If we’re not a married couple or if we are a married couple affects how society looks at our family,” she said, “Without marriage we have to have attorneys draft documents and go through a lot of legal loopholes to have the same rights that everyone else is just afforded because they’re straight. So for me it is just the principle of equality.”

 Angie remembers feeling disappointed, yet not surprised by the passing of Prop. 8, and it is part of the reason she became so involved with PFLAG (Parents Friends & Families of Lesbians and Gays), an organization that was started in the 1970s to help support members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) population. Angie has been an active speaker in the Long Beach chapter and is now the director.

 Prop. 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008, banning same-sex couples from getting married. The proposition was put on the ballot when gay marriage was legalized in the state for a few short months.

 The proposition has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may announce its decision as early as Wednesday on whether the ban on same-sex marriage denies gays and lesbians equal rights.

 The court will also hear the case of Edith Windsor. Windsor is an 83-year-old widow being charged with an inheritance tax due to the fact that she does not qualify as a “surviving spouse” of her female partner of 44 years. The court will determine the constitutionality of denying federal benefits to legally married couples under DOMA.  

 On the national level, these Supreme Court rulings mark a historic moment in the fight for equal rights for same-sex couples. For Angie and Jo, however, the right to marry means the right to a family that is protected under the law.

 “I think there’s just a huge missing piece for people that don’t realize that this is something that we want for our family," said Angie, "to show that we are committed to each other.”