With gay marriage comes question: I do or I don't

By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) - When gay marriage became legal in Pennsylvania earlier this year, Elissa Goldberg was ready to say "I do." Her longtime partner's reaction, however, was "I'm not so sure."

The couple had been together more than 20 years, which Anndee Hochman figured already made them good as married. They owned their Philadelphia home together, kept their money in a joint bank account and were both named as parents on their 13-year-old daughter's birth certificate.

"I didn't really see what the additional benefits would be," says Hochman, a freelance writer.

But deep down, she acknowledges, there was another reason.

"It had to do with coming out as a lesbian at a time when there was a certain pride in living outside the box," said Hochman, 52, adding she wasn't ready to give up a lifestyle she'd come to embrace.

That's the kind of conundrum facing gay couples across the country as marriage barriers many thought might never fall have come crashing down in the wake of this month's Supreme Court refusal to take up the issue.

"We thought once upon a time that it would be much later - if we ever saw it in our lifetime," said Steve Martin of Boise, Idaho, who watched in awe as his state joined some 30 others earlier this month in allowing same-sex marriage.

The gay rights organizer and his longtime partner had held a commitment ceremony in 1998, a non-binding civil ceremony in 2001 and, finally, a wedding in Washington last year after gay marriage became legal there. Now that it's legal in their home state they aren't going to bother.

"Four might be pushing it," Martin says, laughing.

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With gay marriage comes question: I do or I don't