December 16, 2013
In 2007, composer Derfner's (Gay Haiku) boyfriend proposed, spurring not only the frenetic preparations for their wedding ceremony, but also a soul-searching interrogation of the nature of marriage in a society where, at the time, same-sex marriages were still illegal. In this memoir, despite a meandering and unfocused prose style, Derfner candidly questions the country's political and legal pulse and the government's motives for outlawing same-sex marriage. He forcefully argues that the concept of kinship is the root of the opposition to marriage equality; in society's eyes, marriage implies family. Same-sex partners "can and do form families," Defner tells us, but as long as they are denied the right to marry, society at large can deny this fact. "It's the real reason we need the right to marry," he writes. Following a rehashing of the details leading up to his wedding, Derfner concludes that "whatever changes we want to make to the institution of marriage as America knows it are not to destroy the family but to strengthen it."