I've been with my partner for 18 years. As residents of the state of New York, we could be legally married if we chose, given that New York passed a marriage equality law in 2011. My partner would then legally be my husband, and we'd have all the same rights of marriage that New York grants heterosexual couples. We could file a joint New York tax return. My husband could sue an entity for wrongful death if something terrible happened to me. If he died, I'd inherit his assets over his family or anyone else, even if there were no will, as would be the case with any heterosexual married couple.
But according to the Associated Press, that would not necessarily be a marriage, and my partner would not necessarily be my husband. The AP has decreed that he could be called my husband if I insisted on describing him as such in a quotation (i.e., "This is my husband"), or if the reporter knew that I'd called him my husband for some time, regardless of the existence of a legal contract that binds us in the state of New York -- a public record, which the reporter could obtain -- called a marriage certificate.
