They were high school sweethearts and have been together nearly three decades. They have two children. They say their lives are so unremarkable that a journalist once told them they were boring. They were asked at the time if they felt like any other Morris County couple, and they said that, no, something set them apart.

"Is it because you're a gay couple?" they were asked.

"No, it's because we're Democrats," they said.

Maureen Kilian and Cindy Meneghin, both 45, apparently are not so boring that they want to keep a low profile. They asked to be part of a lawsuit, filed last year against the state, that seeks to force New Jersey to legalize gay marriages. They have been traveling around the state to speak at town meetings, as they did this past week at the Unitarian Church in Summit, that are being held to discuss the lawsuit. The point they make, over and over, is that they are an ordinary couple, living in Butler, denied the right in some ways to lead an ordinary life.

They didn't choose their sexuality. They chose one another. They want the right to purchase a family auto insurance package. They want to know that if one of them dies, Social Security death benefits will go to the other.

If one of them is taken to the emergency room of a hospital, they don't want to have to argue with a receptionist to let the other stay by her side. They said that has happened.

But more than anything else, they want people to recognize that they have a right to be who they are.

So they talked a little this past week about U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who recently compared homosexuality to incest and bigamy. They were more upset by a statement made by state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, who recently made this unfortunate comparison when talking about the prospect of gay marriages:

"Look, there are people who are very fond of their dogs, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not a marriage either," he reportedly said.

Cardinale apparently didn't understand why his words sparked a protest. He reportedly said he was simply trying to show there's more to marriage than a loving relationship, that it has to be between a man and a woman. And Santorum said he was simply citing a legal argument, adding that government has a right to outlaw behavior that he claims is deviant and harmful to society and family.

All of which ignores reality.

"We're just trying to legalize what we've lived," Kilian said.

Cardinale's argument -- that gay marriages somehow are not legitimate -- is almost laughable considering the state of heterosexual marriage in this country. One of the speakers at last week's town meeting asked the nearly 300 people in attendance if they ever have watched one of the new reality TV shows.

"It's called 'Married by America,'" he said.

It's perfectly legal for people to marry someone they have never met, based on the vote of a national audience.

Meanwhile, Kilian and Meneghin, who have spent most of their lives together, supporting one another through illnesses while raising two children, said they still can't get the family rate at the local YMCA.

They also have to explain to their children why some people say they are not really a family when it seems so clear that they are. Kilian carried their son, Josh, 10, and Meneghin carried their daughter, Sarah, 8. Meneghin said her mother, who died seven years ago, used to make a joke out of the fact that her straight daughter didn't have children.

"She teased that her gay daughter made her a grandmother," Meneghin said.

Santorum made his statements in response to questions about a pending Supreme Court case that challenges a Texas statute against homosexual sodomy. The senator said he has no problem with homosexuality. He has a problem with homosexual acts. If the Supreme Court strikes down Texas' sodomy law, he said, then states wouldn't be able to legislate against bigamy or incest.

Santorum later said he wasn't actually comparing homosexuality to incest and bigamy. He was simply repeating a legal argument made by Supreme Court Justice Byron White in upholding a Georgia sodomy law in 1986. But the comparison certainly is implied, and Santorum referred to homosexuality as "deviant" behavior" that undermines society and the family.

At a time when gay advocacy groups are fighting for the right to marry, and to be treated like everyone else, calling it a civil rights issue, Santorum was saying that gay people don't have the right to even express their sexuality. He was suggesting that they don't have the right to be who they are. He was comparing being gay, typically not a choice, to other types of sexuality that not only are a choice, but often not consensual.

So you might understand why 10-year-old Josh, whose parents are gay, gets upset when such statements are repeated on TV.

"Josh asked us how come it's OK for people to say mean things about us," Meneghin said. "To have people who say that our relationship is the same as you'd have with a dog or a cat, and to have our children hear it, is just hurtful and wrong."

Josh told the audience at last week's town meeting that he and his sister and parents are a family in their hearts. That might be all that matters, except for a lot of little things that add up.

Kilian and Meneghin said they could save money on insurance if they were married. They could be assured of Social Security benefits if one of them dies. They wouldn't have to worry about paying inheritance tax on the house they jointly own. And the rest of the world might have to accept that their marriage and their family are real.

For a society that watches "Joe Millionaire" and "The Bachelorette," that shouldn't be such a big leap.