Got Conversion?

Tomorrow is the first day gay couples in the land of Lincoln can legally marry. Go figure. I still can't believe it. I will see it and I won't believe it. The whole thing is surreal.

(Remember: No matter your stance on this, the Addiverse loves you. So, feel free to agree, disagree, spew religious hate, do a naked pagan dance, wear a rainbow flag. We honor all in the Addiverse.)

It appears those civilized in Illinois civil unions can "upgrade" their status to marriage with the completion of a form & the presentation of identification. As long as the civilized couple upgrades within the first year, it's free and requires no divorce.

Of course, both parties must be present to win.

It's so surreal and foreign to us that the wife and I have yet to decide when we are going to upgrade. Since the marriage date is retroactive to the civil union date, it doesn't really matter as long as we upgrade within the year.It's not like we're going to be showered with work benefits. Heck, my place of employment isn't sure they are going to honor the marriage. (Don't even get me started about that--I'll fight that fight when it fully and finally surfaces.)

Because I'm skeptical about the whole process (and because I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this whole concept), I called the county clerk yesterday to confirm if an appointment needs to be set to "upgrade" our civil union:

Me: "Hi! I'm calling to ask if people in civil unions need to set an appointment to upgrade to marriage?"

Clerk-minion: "Are you talking about the conversion?"

Me: Stunned silence.....then, burst into laughter.

Me: "Did you say conversion?"

Clerk-minion: "Yes. (Pause.) Are you asking about the conversion of civil union to marriage?"

Me: Still stunned. Who the hell thought to call this a conversion? "Yes. Do we need an appointment to do this?"

Clerk-minion (sounding a bit irritated, why I do not know): "No, just your ID for the conversion process."

Me: "Do we need to do bring our civil union license?"

Clerk-minion (sounding a bit more irritated): "No, we have that on record."

The clerk-minion was in no mood for small talk or other conversion conversation, so I thanked her and hung up. I then laughed even louder.

Whoever thought to call it a conversion is either a genius, an asshole or someone with a good sense of humor. 

For those of you scratching your head, wondering why it would be weird/funny/sick/genius to consider civil union-to-marriage a "conversion," allow me to explain. When I think of conversion as applied to anything sexual-orientation-related, I think of reparative therapy--convert the gays to straights.

Conversion therapy.

There is no way I can think of anything else beside this. As both a therapist and as queen of the lesbians, I tie conversion to making someone straight. Oh, of course you can convert other things: you can convert metric to English measurements. You can convert various types of currency. You can convert temps from Celsius to Fahrenheit.

This begs the question: when the wife and I walk into the county clerk's office to be converted, will one of us walk out as a heterosexual male? Can you just imagine it:

Me (to the wife, as exit the county clerk's office): "Hey! When did I grow this moustache? When did I get this---oh my god....."

The wife: "She converted you. Don't you remember?"

Me: "What? Converted me? I thought we were converting our civil union to marriage. I'm converted to a heterosexual male? Dang, I would've preferred to be a heterosexual female."

The wife: "No, I was converted into a heterosexual female. YOU'RE the heterosexual male."

Me: "Why do I have to be the guy? YOU be the guy?"

The wife: "You're older. You lost by default."

Me: "Why didn't we both convert into heterosexual females?"

The wife: "Because if that happened, we wouldn't want to get married and thus we'd need a divorce instead of a marriage. That's too expensive."

See? Conversion equals conversion of sexual orientation. I can't help it. I'd much prefer of converting money, measurements, temps, but this is what I think of: be ye converted from sinful queer to god-fearing straight. Praise the baby Jesus, get behind thee, Satan!

We will see what happens when we do actual go get converted. I highly doubt the clerk-minion will offer to take our photo.

Convert-ulations to all Illinois couples who will be converting in the next few months. 

Remember: Home Depot does have a gift registry. Just sayin.'