Norman McArthur, 74, was the adopted son of Bill Novak, 76, until mid-May when they dissolved their adoption to legally marry.
The couple, who met in their twenties and were recognised as domestic partners from 1994 in New York, struggled to find legal recognition as a couple when they moved to Erwinn, Pennsylvania.
Getting older, the couple began thinking about the rights each would have if their partner were to fall ill or pass away.
Would they have any? Their lawyer told them they wouldn’t.
Not in Pennsylvania, where the only avenue to legally bind the couple was through adoption.
“Most importantly, it would allow us visitation rights in a hospital, and gaining of knowledge if one of us was in the hospital,” McArthur told Yahoo Parenting.
“With new HIPAA privacy laws, hospitals are very constrained in what they can say to other people. If we were legally related, I would be allowed into the ER and entitled to know what Bill’s condition was if anything should happen.”
As Novak was two years older, he adopted McArthur and they were ‘father’ and ‘son’ for 15 years before the laws banning same sex marriage were ruled unconstitutional in May.
To marry, the couple needed to dissolve the adoption first and on May 14 a judge signed a petition to allow this.
“We had 30 friends in court to show that this case was out of the ordinary — though the judge knew that — and when the judge signed the order our friends burst into applause and I burst into tears,” said McArthur.
The couple wed last Sunday later at a small ceremony. And McArthur said it was every bit worth the wait.
