Our Story as Allies of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples 

ove and commitment – at least the kind that you know is lasting and warrants a lifetime – came to us relatively late.  By the time our romance led to a wedding in 2001, the bride would be 44 and the groom 53.  Being single well into adulthood, our friends had become as much if not more family than family.  So wedding plans inevitably included friends as well as relatives in significant ceremonial roles.   

We occasionally emerged from the novelty and the excitement leading up to the wedding that distracted us from anything on the periphery.  On one such occasion, we realized our insensitivity to the fact that two of our nearest and dearest friends could participate in our wedding but could not have one of their own.  

Michael Sabatino and Robert Voorheis were and are our role model for how to have a successful relationship.  They had already been a committed couple for over twenty years by the time we asked them to participate in our wedding -- longer than any of our other contemporaries.  They support each other in pursuit of disparate, successful careers.  They jointly own a beautiful home.  They have been mutual caregivers to a foster child and each others’ ailing parents through their declining years.  They are active participants in their church congregation and in civic issues as residents of Yonkers and Westchester County.  They have never hesitated to offer shelter from a storm themselves or to reach out to their large circle of acquaintance to find help for someone who needs it.  They are the very model of the modern married couple and yet are denied that legal status. 

So we were nothing short of remorseful at having asked them to bear witness as we attained the status and rights that are denied to them.  True to form, they dismissed our misgivings and reiterated their unconditional love and happiness for us.  They also discouraged any thoughts of protesting the lack of universal marriage rights by refusing to get married as long as they and other same-sex couples could not.  

It was then that we started to fully appreciate the breadth of rights and protections under state and federal laws that are afforded to and taken for granted by married heterosexual couples.  So as we made the commitment of marriage to each other, we committed to support and work to ensure marriage rights and protections for ALL couples who want them.  We do this in honor of Michael and Robert and numerous friends who would get married if they could.  We do this in support of all loving couples who would get married if they could.  We do this to end obvious discrimination.  We do this because it is the right thing to do.   

Ed Friedman and Allison Jaffe
Married October 14, 2001