Spain, and New York.

[randomness]

Michael Potemra, in a post on The Corner blog in the National Review Online:

Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village, NYC — Forty-two years ago next Tuesday, a police raid against this gay bar started a series of riots that sparked the birth of the modern gay-rights movement. Tonight marks, for New York, the end of the long road that began at this unassuming little bar.

...

I see smiles on young people — and also, on some quiet senior citizens who are actually old enough to remember Stonewall 1969.

And speaking of 1969, here’s a little bit of perspective. In 1969, Spain was a conservative religious republic, led by the legendary Generalissimo Francisco Franco; and New York City was already Babylon-on-the-Hudson, well on its way to being the crime-sex-drugs-porn-and-atonal-music capital of the world. If I had said to you then, “Forty years from now, one of these places will allow homosexuals to marry each other with the blessing of the state” . . . well, let’s just say you would have made a lot of money if you had bet on Spain.

Spain did it in 2005, six years ahead of the Empire State; and now we have it here in ol’ Babylon. I call it Babylon affectionately; let no one question, on this night, my patriotism as a citizen of the state of Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Marx Brothers.

Comments

[muffyjo]

I know that as a kid (in the late 60's and early 70s) that the men I knew called each other wife and husband. Especially when referring to each other in any social forum, like work. Even when they were not allowed to be totally "out of the closet". So I would sincerely doubt anyone invented the idea. I would bet that it's a concept of inclusions, that people got tired of "pretending" to the outside world and wanted actual recognition for their partnerships.

As to the other half of that, the insurance companies did, to some extent, and the medical field. As they got more and more strict about who could and could not have access to patients, they caused more and more waves among a loving community who didn't have legal access to their loved ones.

Those are my guesses.