I just had an interesting experience while I was at the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) National Conference. I was presenting on the Women's Business Initiative panel, and came in for the last two days of the conference. I had been on vacation with my partner, Sharrin, so we added a stop in Las Vegas on the way home to do the panel. As we talked to various attendees afterwards, several people came up to me and said they had met my wife. I was quick to say, "Sharrin is not my wife, she's my partner." I actually had someone say to me "oh, that's a safe word."    

I am in support of marriage as one of a myriad of options for our families of choice in the LGBT community, but it is not for everyone! It hit me that as more states adopt marriage equality, and as we hopefully will soon see the end of DOMA, the new "standard" in the community may become the heteronormative view of husband/husband or wife/wife.

Something I work for every day is the freedom for the LGBT community to name and claim their own identities and relationships. I think, just as we have learned to check with others on what pronouns they prefer to be called, we are going to have to add relationship nomenclature to our list of questions as we discover more about each other. I will definitely be there celebrating when DOMA is dead, with my partner, congratulating all those newly married couples as we add one more page of diversity to the history books.