Ed. note: Cindy Meneghin and Maureen Killian are log-time members of the Diocese of Newark.
[The Star-Ledger] Years ago, Cindy Meneghin's father gave her advice about making a lifelong commitment.
Every year, he said, ask Maureen Killian if she wants to spend the coming year together. Never take it for granted.
For 39 years, Killian has stayed by Meneghin's side ("Sometimes, I leave her hanging for a minute," Killian said). And Saturday, for the second or third time — depending on when you start counting — the two will be joined in marriage.
"It seems like Maureen and I just can't stop saying 'I do,'" Meneghin said.
They'll reaffirm a commitment that's already seen them through their early years together in the 1970s, when, they said, they felt like the only lesbian couple in the country — few people they knew were out, and even fewer were ever depicted on television or in the movies. It's a commitment that's been their foundation as they raised two children together. It's a commitment that drove them to fight seemingly endlessly for a right they said they thought they'd win long ago — the right to call each other "wife."
After she and Maureen Killian are pronounced married, Cindy Meneghin holds aloft their marriage license.
MIKE PETERS PHOTO
Meneghin and Killian had been among the seven couples whose lawsuit ultimately resulted in New Jersey's 2006 civil unions law — which provided a marriage-like arrangement for same-sex couples but denied them the label of "marriage," as well as the federal benefits that come with it.
And they were among the plaintiffs whose lawsuit has now brought New Jersey same-sex marriage, identical in legal weight to the opposite-sex kind.
