LOCAL NEWS

Local Couple Goes West to Get Hitched
The reason? ‘We want [our 4-year-old son] to have that dignity and respect that the government gives families with marriage.’

By Joelle L. Quartini
Friday, June 06, 2008

For Long Islanders Jeff Friedman and Andy Zwerin, traveling to California to get married is not about making a statement. It’s not about throwing a lavish party. And, after 23 years of loving, it’s not about sealing a commitment. It’s about Joshua, their 4-year-old son.

“We want him to have that dignity and respect that the government gives families with marriage,” Friedman said, speaking for himself and his future husband. “I want my son to walk around and feel that he is part of a family, that is equal to that of any other family. Without having marriage, he will not feel that way.”

Jeff and Andy met in high school, where they began their relationship, one that lasted through college and graduate school.

"Twenty three years ago, I wanted to get married, but we knew that then it was illegal," Friedman said. "We wanted a child back then too, but I didn’t think that was possible either."
The couple adopted their son jointly at birth from New York State after years of waiting.
“Although [New York State] will allow same-sex couples the right to adopt, they don’t allow us to create families, and that’s a problem,” Friedman said. “Marriage rights are important for the raising and rearing of children.”

When the California Supreme Court ruled in May that denying same-sex couples the right to marriage is unconstitutional, Jeff and Andy decided to seize the opportunity, and make their family legally official.

The couple aren’t the only ones. Justice Harvey Brownstone,  who has performed nearly 1,000 sam-sex wedding in Canada, said that since the California ruling, all the New York couple who had booked weddings with him have cancelled.

Jeff and Andy will fly most of their family to Los Angeles for a traditional Jewish wedding on Oct. 11, which, coincidentally, is National Coming Out Day. The ceremony will take place at a cousin’s home, where friends and family will help the couple celebrate.

Before Jeff became a stay-at-home dad, he was a partner in a law firm. If he referred to Andy as his “partner,” people thought he meant law partner. So the two have been calling each other “husband” for years. But now, it’ll be official.

When Jeff heard about the California court ruling, he immediately called Andy.
“We talked and we talked, and the next thing I knew, he proposed to me,” Jeff said in a telephone interview on his way home from the Bronx Zoo with Joshua. “Then the governor came out and made his announcements, and we were just giddy.”

Also in May, New York Gov. David Paterson directed state agencies to follow a February Appeals Court ruling that declared New York State recognizes valid, out-of-state gay marriages. Paterson has been a staunch and vocal supporter of marriage equality.

“For us, obviously, marriage is about love. But we also want our family to be held up to the same stature of other families, through marriage,” Friedman said.

For Jeff and Andy, this is the first time that they have found a viable option for legalizing their 23-year committed relationship.

“We refuse to leave our country for basic rights,” Friedman said of Canada, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2003.

“Civil unions do not give you, at all, the dignity and respect and the feeling of equality of someone getting married, and really what we’re trying to do is explain to our son that our family is equal.”
Their relationship has come into question at a hospital on Long Island twice in the past two years.
The first time, when Jeff suffered a severe heart attack, Andy was told that he was not a family member and was not authorized to fill out Jeff’s medical forms, regardless of the more than 20 years they had spent as spouses.

“I’m an attorney. We have health care proxies. We have powers of attorney. We have every type of document you’d think we could need as a same-sex couple, but you don’t carry them in your back pocket everyday," Friedman said.

So last year, when Joshua had an asthma attack and needed to be rushed to the same hospital, they came prepared with their child’s original birth certificate, just in case.

The hospital staff demanded not only the original birth certificate but also the original adoption papers because they didn’t believe that a same-sex couple could actually adopt a child on the same birth certificate.

Nassau County does not have domestic partnership registration either, so Jeff and Andy are not recognized as anything.

Friedman said the need for marriage comes from hospital issues, tax issues and rights of inheritance, but ultimately, it is about recognition—as a couple and as a family.

Californians will vote on a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage in a November referendum, which has left some wondering what would happen, if it were to pass, to those marriages that have already been performed. But Freidman remains undeterred: “I don’t know how, mechanically, you really can ‘undo’ somebody’s marriage.”

Regardless of the vote Jeff and Andy are not willing to wait around and miss this opportunity to wed in their own country.

“Marriage is the creation of a family, and we’ve created one over the past 23 years—It’s time for us to be recognized as such.”

about us

© 2008 |  HX Media, LLC  | Privacy Policy