On a hot afternoon in July 2004, Jean Gauthier and Claudia Cassel were married at home, in a small room with four friends in attendance.
Gauthier remembers being thankful the small space was air-conditioned. The ceremony was officiated by the Belmont town clerk.
Later, the newlyweds would entertain friends and family at Casa De Pedro, a now-defunct Venezuelan restaurant. It would be the first of three celebrations the couple would host over the next several months, marking their marriage after six years together.
But that first one, the actual ceremony, stands out. They were legally able to marry in Massachusetts, a momentous occasion in the history of LGBTQ rights. Marriage became legal in the Bay State in May 2004.
“I remember thinking it was the happiest day of my life,” recalled Gauthier. “I was in my early 50s, and to go that long not being allowed to legally marry, then all of a sudden you can, it was a whole new thing to experience. I remember how excited and happy I felt.”
Gauthier and Cassel had been together for six years and living together for five when marriage equality was announced on the news. The couple, already committed to each other, decided they had to get married legally because of what it represented.
“It was important to mark this time in history by getting legally married,” she said.
Gauthier and Cassel, then living in Belmont, decided to wait until July 21, the anniversary of when they began living together, with a legal marriage ceremony. It would, Gauthier said, mark their anniversary, sanctifying an already important date in the couple’s history.
The change from a committed couple to a legally married couple had benefits, personal and otherwise. Gauthier talked at length about how much more comfortable it is to be introduced as a married couple.
“It is important for people to know that (we are married),” she said. “For the most part, people have been great.”
In the intervening 20 years, Gauthier said she can remember few, if any, negative responses. But she is quick to count herself lucky to live in Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts is such a wonderful state. We really love living here and I love a lot of people who live in it,” she said.
But she understands Massachusetts is, in some ways, an outlier to other parts of the country. Same-sex relationships here in Massachusetts are not uncommon, not underground, and are accepted, she said.
“In other places, probably not, and that’s frightening,” she said.
But when marriage equality became law in Massachusetts, it was quickly accepted. She and Cassel had lived in an apartment for 14 years, and when they told their landlord, who lived in another country, their marriage news, his response was genuine.
“He said, ‘Why not?’ He meant, why shouldn’t we get married?” Gauthier said. “He was genuinely happy. And it was a lovely expression that made a point.”
