Last modified: Monday, September 1, 2008 1:07 AM EDT MIKE GEORGEFormer Dightin-Rehoboth teacher Kerry McElroy, rear, and her partner, Ilene Scalzi. 'Times really are changing' BY ALLISON COLLINS FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE They met through a Web site and had their first date at the Waterstreet Cafe in Fall River. About three years later, they were married. "We connected right away, we talked on the phone, and we met, and it's been smooth sailing ever since," Kerry McElroy said of her marriage to Ilene Scalzi. McElroy, 41, a former teacher at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, says she loves being married. "It's something I never even imagined I would get the opportunity to do," she said. "If I wanted to be married, I would have to do my own ceremony. It would never be anything I could actually do legally," she said. "It's a kind of feeling - like societal sanction," she said. But when gay marriages began in Massachusetts in 2004, McElroy and Scalzi, 45, decided to take the plunge. How did they decide? "We never really talked about marriage, but three years into our relationship it became an option, so that was nice," she said. "To be married at 38, it was very odd. It was a good odd," she said. The couple lives in New Bedford, with Scalzi's two children. "Her kids are great, that's our family," McElroy said. McElroy remembers when she first heard gay marriage would be legalized. "I still remember the moment. I was with YAI (Youth Against Ignorance), it was in November, and the court case came down. We were at an event, we were at a conference, and I remember they announced it, and we were all whooping it up, and I thought, 'Wow, that's neat'," McElroy said. The Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts became official in May 2004. "It was finally finalized, and I didn't believe it. And then I just thought, 'Wow, I think, times just really are changing'," she said. McElroy could see the change in her classroom, too. When she started teaching at D-R in the early 1990s, McElroy said there was a relatively strong anti-gay attitude amongst her students. But by the time she left D-R in 2004, homosexuality had become a "non-issue" with the students, she said. McElroy, originally from Rehoboth, came out during her college years, when she was about 19. "I never looked back, actually," she said. Though she was openly gay, the coming out process with her family was a bit more gradual. "I don't think I ever said the words until I announced I was getting married," she said. "It wasn't something I hid, but it was something I think my mother was very uncomfortable with. I understood that, and I respected that," she said. "I knew I was gay at a very young age, I think. Before you really had a word to understand it," she said. But when McElroy was growing up in the '80s, it wasn't something people talked about. Even though some of those around her were gay, it simply wasn't discussed. "I never would have talked to a teacher about it; I think it just wasn't spoken about. It was something you were still made to feel embarrassed about," she said. McElroy said she lost one of her first teaching jobs because she was gay. She was teaching at a small Catholic school in Rhode Island at the time. "I have the feeling it was because I brought my partner with me, and they didn't like that," she said. In her next teaching role, McElroy said she decided she would be available for students who may be gay, to talk to. She taught primarily history at Dighton-Rehoboth. For 10 of the years she was there, she led the school's Youth Against Ignorance group. She was asked to head the group after students were told they needed an advisor. The students made a list of teachers they thought might be gay or gay-friendly. The first few teachers on the list said no, but when McElroy was approached, she said yes. The principal at the time was not too happy, she said. "His take was, of course, 'We don't have any gay students here'," McElroy said. YAI's membership numbers fluctuated throughout the years, but McElroy said she was always there for her students. "I hope I was a positive role model. I tried to be," she said. After teaching at D-R for 11 years, McElroy resigned. "I left because I got really tired of the administration. The whole gay issue was a really big deal, not for me personally, but the way gay kids were treated by the administration," she said. "I was very unhappy with a lot of things, just administratively, the way all students were treated, but particularly minority students." After she resigned, McElroy started her own business. She was always a personal trainer, so after making a business plan, she opened Barbelle, a gym on Route 6 in Swansea. It has one male member. Members of her gym don't have any problems with her sexuality. "Most people who come here know Ilene, they know I'm married, they know about the kids," she said. Before the couple was legally allowed to wed, they had to make special arrangements for their estates. They saw a lawyer, and made sure that if something happened to one of them, her estate would flow to the other. Not being married also added other difficulties. During one of McElroy's last years at D-R, Scalzi lost her job and her health insurance. "I tried to get her on my benefits, but I was told no by the superintendent," she said. Now that they're married, McElroy is on Scalzi's health insurance. "If we weren't married, I wouldn't have any health benefits at all," she said. McElroy is hopeful that more states will legalize gay marriage. Scalzi's sister and her partner live in California, where gay marriage was recently legalized, but they're waiting to get married out of fear that the decision will be overturned. "I hope its citizens are smart enough to realize that the Earth is not stopping movement because gay people can get married," McElroy said. "I hope that a huge state like California will carry the rest of the nation," she said.