When we renewed our vows, we also celebrated 20 years of our right to marry
Our legal fight tested and strengthened our love for each other
This First Person article is written by Tess Healy, who lives in Prince George, B.C. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ.
Twenty years to the day that we got married, my wife Wendy Young and I stood in front of family and friends and renewed our vows.
We said we would do it all again — the fight, the legal battle, the hardship, the triumph and the wedding itself.
Our vow renewal celebration captured the joy I find in our relationship. No matter the state of the world or how hard things are, Wendy makes me whole and, in that whole self, I can move through the world unafraid. This is what it means to me to be happily ever after.
But we had to fight hard to get here.
Our love story
I hadn't expected to fall in love at a hockey game. I was at a Prince George Cougars game when a mutual friend introduced me to Wendy.
I can't explain the visceral reaction that I had. The rest of the sports arena seemed to fade away and it was like just she and I were there. I was attracted to her, but I was also hesitant to take it further because I was single and determined to remain so. Wendy and I began communicating over email. Both of us were writers and our conversations were a dance with words. I was delighted with her quick wit. One day, I reached out by phone and luckily got the answering machine as I was feeling too incoherent to talk sensibly. She called back, and we continued to chat. But we didn't meet again in person until several months later at a BBQ held by mutual friends.
Later, we went out for dinner to formalize our relationship and, at some point, we realized we had lost track of time because the restaurant had been closing down around us.
That's when we began dating seriously and I learned that just the two of us is enough to own the world. It was also when we agreed we would never put our relationship in the closet.
Our legal fight
In 1998, it wasn't legal for same-sex couples to marry in Canada.
Wendy and I weren't keen on marriage. We are both strong feminists who saw marriage as an unattractive patriarchal institution. But we really wanted to have the choice to decide for ourselves.
So, we became one of the eight British Colombia couples who pursued the same-sex marriage lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court — and won in 2003. We had been nominated by Gala, our local LGBTQ organization to be one of the same-sex couples from across the country to be part of a human rights case on same-sex marriage rights.
The lawsuit was unexpectedly a test of who we were meant to be as a couple. I remember one night when I was home alone because Wendy was out of town, and I was watching the televised broadcast of the public hearings on the rights to marriage. I listened to a speaker opposed to those rights for same-sex couples who said we were going to hell. When Wendy called, I was beside myself with fear and convinced that man was right. She managed to talk me off the ledge and had me laughing. It was a test I am convinced that strengthened our relationship.
We live in Prince George, a small city in northern B.C. that is often unjustly stigmatized as backward and redneck. Many of our family and friends were concerned for our safety and for the safety of our home and our pets when we decided to join the lawsuit. We decided that welcoming or not, the challenge in court had to proceed. But we were surprised and delighted with the level of support we did receive, often from parents with children struggling with sexual identity.
We were parade marshalls for the Pride parade in Prince George later that year after the successful challenge, and we took our wedding vows in front of nearly 400 people. Wendy wore a Victorian tuxedo she'd had made for the occasion and I wore an Edwardian afternoon tea gown. Instead of confetti, we handed out packets of bird seed to the crowd. When we came down off the stage to cut the cake, we walked through a shower of birdseed, smiles and applause.
It's been 20 years since that day. Marriage isn't easy. There has been loss and pain, but also joy and triumph. Many of our female heterosexual friends have asked Wendy to give lessons to their husbands on how to be romantic. And I had the legal right to be by Wendy's bedside when she fought cancer in the hospital. That hard-won right became a foundation in our married life.
Our vow renewal
I didn't realize what joy there would be in gaining the right to marry as a same-sex couple. I didn't realize the joy I would witness seeing so many other same-sex couples become a legal family.
Our marriage has been a legal affirmation of who we already knew ourselves to be: a loving couple striving to get daily life right. So this year, as we were visiting a local winery, when Wendy asked me if I would marry her again, I said yes.
This year's vow renewal showed us that we made the right decision to stand up and stand together. And yes, we would do it all again.
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