They are your typical couple.
They have lived in big cities like Sydney and Seville.
They have lived in rural areas raising dogs, cats, sheep, goats, ducks, chooks and having their own organic vegie patch.
Together they have travelled extensively.
They enjoy going to the gym and jogging on the beach.
Angel and Ashley, like other couples, like meditation, reading, going to the movies, going to church, and being part of a parish, doing volunteer work and spending time with their large families and group of good friends and travelling.
They have been together for 26 years, own a house, a 10 acre property in Byron bay and a cafe and now share their life with their adorable cat Cielo.
Ashley is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology and Angel is the Assistant Director of Social Work.
What is wrong with this picture??
They can’t get married in Australia.
Angel and Ashley have travelled to Spain to legally get married and to have their 26 year union recognised.
“We both come from large families and had been to many family and friends’ weddings. Always the question was asked: ‘When are you two getting married?’”
“After 26 years you get a bit tired of people assuming that you are friends and you get very tired of introducing each other as “This is my boyfriend” and “This is my partner.”
“When we decided to get married it was so lovely to introduce each other as “This is my fiancé.” Now that we are married we smile at each other as we say “You are my husband.”
“We go to a gym where the majority of the guys are tradesmen. They all know we are partners and when we got back from Spain we had so many of them come and hug us and congratulate us on getting married.”
“We would like to see this picture repeated time and time again for everyone in the community.”
“We were fortunate that we could go to Spain to celebrate our love with some family and friends who could make it there.“
However, there were many people who just could not make the long journey to Spain. Ashley’s 86 year old mother had to listen to them exchange their vows over the phone, saddened that she could not be there to celebrate her youngest son’s special day. Even though she could not be there to enjoy the day she still gave them the gift of the majority of the reception.
When they got back home Ashley’s Mum was waiting with rose petals to throw over them and congratulated them!
“We have always been proud Australians, but on this occasion, on the streets of New York and all over Spain people were shocked that Australia was so backward. Australia will soon have marriage equality but it will do so not as a world leader on the issue but as a country that played politics with this human rights issue and was brought into it dragging and screaming.”
“Rather than be afraid of same sex marriage the community can celebrate in the renewed hope the LGBTI community has given to the concept of marriage. We have by our wish to have our rights recognised given voice to the joy marriage with a renewed interest.”