01:00 AM EST on Friday, November 19, 2004

THIS PAST SEPTEMBER I got married to another woman, one with whom I have lived intimately for more than 15 years. Obtaining the marriage license, the logistical planning, the writing of the actual ceremony, and the months of discussions between my wife and myself about the meaning of marriage, of commitment to one another, to our respective families, and to our broader community of friends, neighbors and colleagues at work, composed one of the most profound periods in my 60-year existence.

As a result, I find that I cannot empathize with those who believe that this act -- to me a deeply moral and ethical one -- was evil or immoral or in someway a threat to heterosexual marriage.

Marriage is a social good. It provides stability to the couple, to children, and to the community; it provides a social location for caring and giving, and it provides economic safety and benefits.

We opened our ceremony by recognizing the greater good: the commitment we offered to our overlapping communities, the promise to honor our elders and the children in our larger group.

Paula and I first noted that the recognition offered us by those assembled to witness our marriage binds us to the community and, by extension, the neighborhood, town and, indeed, the world. We believe that community makes a marriage as much as our love for each other. Thus we pledged to the assembled group that we would support them through the lows and highs of their lives, as we feel certain they will support us. And we pledged to work in the larger world to improve the lot of those many whose lives are harder, more constrained, less filled with open opportunity than ours.

This part of the ceremony wove us into the social fabric and stabilized us, but also, by weaving in our talents and powers, created a denser weave, thus strengthening the social cloth, as well.

Many argue that marriage is about family, parents, children, and generational continuity. I agree. And here, too, I cannot fathom how hetero- and homosexual unions differ. Not all marriages of either sort have children -- sometimes by choice, sometimes because the bodies are unwilling. But married couples, with or without children of their own, serve important roles for children -- as aunts and uncles, as godparents, as teachers and confidants.

Moving from the community level to the family, we pledged our love for all parents in the room, and expressed our joy in the work they do in raising the next generation of our community. We expressed our love for the children -- those already grown to adulthood and those barely able yet to walk -- and our confidence that they will lead productive and ethical lives as they come into their own. (The ages of attendees ranged from 6 months to 93 years). We pledged as well to honor our ancestors -- relatives and friends long since or recently departed -- to honor that continuity of life that forms each of us, and, most especially, to tell stories of the departed generation to the youngest in the room, so that their memories and the lessons of their lives will be preserved.

Finally, within the concentric circles of community and family, came the couple. We spoke of the ways in which each had transformed the other's life.

I pledged to Paula my love and friendship; to honor and respect her; to support her in sickness and in health until death separates us. I pledged also to work with her in partnership not only for our own mutual good, but to improve the lives of others, for we share a wish to improve the world, and this value binds us to one another.

Paula pledged to esteem me above all others, to gather all her resources and strength to support and honor me. She vowed to care for me in sickness and in health, and, for me, she vowed to be hopeful, to be healthy, to keep her heart open and mind engaged.

How could it be that these ceremonies that stabilize us, that strengthen communities, that support children, that offer social and economic supports, especially in old age and in times of illness, benefit couple and society when two-sex couples engage in them, but not when same-sex couples do? How can the good things that marriage brings to same-sex couples subtract from the worth of marriage between couples of different sexes?

I ask those opposed to marriage for lesbians and gay men: Which of the pledges we made during our marriage harm you?

Anne Fausto-Sterling is a professor of biology and gender studies at Brown University. She married playwright Paula Vogel in Massachusetts.