by Alisa Solomon

About the author: Alisa Solomon is a contributing editor for the Village Voice.

I’m definitely the marrying kind—a nester, monogamous, and corny as Kansas. My partner and I had a commitment ceremony a few years ago to celebrate our relationship and declare it publicly. The rings we exchanged are engraved with the Hebrew words ahuvot l’olam—beloveds forever. (I said I was corny.)

But if Hawaii legalizes gay and lesbian marriages, we won’t be hurrying to Honolulu. The way we see it, if the state has no business in our bedrooms, what business does it have in our bonding? Of course equality is a bottom-line principle. As long as the state awards benefits to heterosexuals who marry, those benefits ought to be...