For the last 13 years, I have dedicated my life to raising three children – one of whom is now grown and two more who have special needs and may stay with us well past their eighteenth birthdays. I have remained devoted and faithful to one person whom I love deeply and with whom I intend to share the rest of my life. But legally I am not a parent or a wife. I’m not either of these things because the state of North Carolina says I’m not. Because a determined group of fundamentalist Christian voters and legislators insist that I am an abomination.

My front yard last year.

Last year Republican state legislators proposed an amendment to our state constitution that would ban marriage between anyone other than a man and a woman. They managed to schedule the vote for the same day as the Republican presidential primary. And then fundamentalist preachers stepped up on their altars and told their congregations to go out and vote to preserve marriage from the perverts. And that’s how less than 21% of the registered voters of the state of North Carolina managed to write bigotry and discrimination into our state constitution. Too many people just stayed home.

What’s it really matter, right? Gay men and women make up a relatively small minority of the population, and we all have bigger things to worry about. That seemed to be the consensus during the presidential campaign last year – the economy, the national debt, the mess we’ve made in the Middle East. What do these few people matter?

Aren’t they cute? And harmless. Don’t forget harmless.

And besides, it’s not so bad to be gay in the U.S. these days, is it? People talk about gay rights on the news all time now and look, Ellen Degeneres is rich and popular. There are pictures of her and her girlfriend all over the internet. And what about Neil Patrick Harris? Everybody likes him. And Anderson Cooper and Dumbledore and Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. And dozens of others. All these famous people are out of the closet and open about their sexuality now. Things must be getting better for gay people in the US. Right?

Unless you’re not rich. Unless you’re just a regular person living in one of the 30 states that have made it illegal for you to marry. Unless you live in a small town (or any town without a university) in the South or Midwest where your neighbors will certainly snub you or worse. Unless you have kids you have no legal connection to. Unless you have chronic or serious health issues and no health insurance. Unless you’re anywhere near retirement age. Because if any or all of these apply to you, being gay in the U.S. is pretty freakin’ stressful.

At least it is for my partner and me. Here’s why:

I have not had health insurance in 13 years. (My partner just sacrificed a job she liked because the health insurance did not cover “domestic partners” in an attempt to secure a permanent position with a company that does offer benefits for me.)

If anything happens to my partner, I have no legal right to custody of the children I have spent the last 13 years caring for. Her ex-husband and almost any blood relative would have a better claim than me.

Though my partner works to support our family single-handedly and pays into social security, I will not be entitled to retirement benefits as her spouse.

If one of us is hospitalized, the other can be denied access because we are not legally married. If one of us is incapacitated, the other won’t be allowed to make medical decisions.

I am not allowed to take our kids to a doctor until my partner signs a form authorizing me to make decisions for them. Each year, B must sign forms at our boys’ school before I am allowed to pick them up.

It took 12 years for our bank to allow B to add my name to our account.

The list goes on and on. Still, my partner and I consider ourselves very fortunate. We have straight friends and family who are extremely accepting and supportive.

But…

We’ve had front row seats to a life-long (for us) national dialogue about gay rights that has framed us as less than human. People or groups characterizing gays as mentally ill, perverted, or condemned by God garner headlines almost every day.

Some of our own supportive friends and family still vote for people who would deny us basic civil rights. Some of them go to churches who condemn us and offer hypocrisy and pity thinly veiled as Christian “compassion.”

Politicians have done nothing but disappoint. For a brief time in the nineties, it looked like the tide would turn but then Clinton caved to political expediency and allowed passage of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and DOMA.

Then Bush became president and the whole atmosphere darkened. It suddenly became popular for fundamentalist zealots and haters to shout their bile from every pulpit, altar, protest and headline. It was creepy and frightening. I never once thought I would feel that way in my own country, the same country I was raised to believe (and did believe) was a shining example of how a democratic government could honor human dignity and freedom. For eight years, we learned to keep our heads down.

Now we finally have a president who is willing to stand up for a persecuted minority and he is vilified for it. In the meantime, the same “issues” are being “debated.” Are gay people fit parents? Just yesterday a Supreme Court justice implied that there is not enough evidence to decide that (as if there exists any evidence suggesting that heterosexual people are fit parents). Another justice said the issue is too “new.”

Are gay people entitled to the same basic civil rights as everybody else? Our federal government, in the guise of the Defense of Marriage Act, says emphatically, No! Today, our Supreme Court will pass judgment on that law and on me.

We’ll see.

This morning all I can do is remember that for 27 years, since the day I came out, hope for change has been buried under a mountain of disappointment. The fact is, it’s no easier being gay in the U.S. today than it was 20 years ago. Today, the Supreme Court, in hearing the United States v. Windsor, has a chance to change that. And, in spite of myself, I find myself hoping against hope that they do. But I’m not holding my breath.