After nearly ten years of togetherness, gay playwright Terrence McNally was finally able to marry his partner in Washington D.C. Tuesday.

Although the couple was part of a Vermont civil union for seven years, they wanted more, according to the Associated Press.

“We want the ‘M’ word … We don’t like separate but equal,” the 71-year-old playwright said. “We want equal.”

Tom Kirdahy, a lawyer and Broadway producer, chose a passage from the play Corpus Christi to explain his feelings for McNally.

“It is good when two men love as James and Bartholomew do and we recognize their union,” a gay Christ-like figure says before pronouncing two apostles married. “Love each other in sickness and in health.”

Three stars from McNally’s plays witnessed the ceremony on the banks of the Potomac near Kennedy Center.

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