The New York Times this weekend explored how transgendered couples are challenging the marriage laws in New Jersey.

Donald and Frances Brunner married in 1980. In 2005 Donald became Denise. Still legally married, the couple just amended the marriage license to reflect the name change.

Another biologically hetero couple married six months before the "husband" had his sex change, just so they could be protected by law.

It would seem as if the joke is on New Jersey. For now, anyway. While neither couple has faced legal problems yet, both worry about the day one is turned away at the emergency room or stripped of their rights to make important medical decisions for the other—all further evidence that antiquiated marriage laws in all states need to be updated.

Especially after a 2000 case in Texas where lawyers for Christie Lee Littleton, a Texas male-to-female transsexual suing her husband’s doctors for wrongful death, tried to explain her situation: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.” 

Seems simple enough to us: everybody gets a civil union, which is recognized by law the way straight marriage is today. If people then want to get married in the church, just like they baptize their babies, go for it. But that's just us, we're not big God fans. 

[NYT: Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change]