The longish, wistful feature from the Washington Post, "Inventing
a Marriage -- and a Divorce" looks at what lead one gay couple
to join together in what they termed a "holy union" -- in
1976.
It was the spiritual, not the legal, side of marriage that was important to them, [Wayne] Schwandt recalled more than 25 years later. They wanted the blessing of the church and hardly thought about the state. "I was naive," Schwandt said. "I would not have understood what the 'legal protections of the law' would have meant.'"
Their union had no legal standing, but they hyphenated their names. "We were crazy," [James] Fortunato said. "It doesn't even fit on a credit card." He recalled trying to reason with irate Department of Motor Vehicles workers to change his name on his driver's license.
Sadly, like half of all marriages, their union didn't last the
test of time, in part because it turned into a media circus. But
one went on to a new, 20-year (and still counting) relationship
that included a private exchange of rings at a church altar. Just a
look at common lives being lived in uncommon times.