“Ever since I was 19 or 20, I knew that I would want to give myself over to one person in a formal way,” said Brandon A., who had been in two previous gay relationships lasting more than a year before meeting Brandon L. “And it didn’t even really matter to me if the politics of the world were going to bend in my favor so that my marriage was considered legal. Legal or not, I was going to have a commitment ceremony in front of the people who matter to me. I’ve always been oddly traditional about that.”