To Form a More Perfect Union: Marriage Equality News

NY: Commentary--Marriage: No small matter

Link: The Hillsdale Independent
by Michael Kaufman

Excerpt:

I GET A FAIR amount of feedback on my columns, and every now and then someone puts me in my place. A person identified as Lauren wrote in response to my column about becoming chief marriage officer in Livingston. In that column, I wrote about two things I had to agree to if I wanted the position: If I agree to perform a wedding, I must do it no matter how incompatible I think the people are, and I can not marry people of the same gender. I wrote that I was okay with both of these conditions. 

I forgot what an important subject same sex marriage is to many people. Lauren politely took me to task on this. "Your new position is not to be taken lightly," she wrote, "but neither is the injustice that same sex marriages are illegal in New York and you had to formally agree not to do them." She went on to tell me that she and her partner of 25 years, along with many other couples, were married in New Paltz in 2004 and all the weddings were annulled by New York State.

[...]

Then came the real zinger: "If you thought about this before you quickly agreed, it would have been encouraging if you had so noted it in your column. If it didn't cross your mind, then there is no justice and there is no peace."

Guilty as charged: It did not cross my mind. But after reading her comments, I thought she was simply reading more into the column than was there, and that only those affected by the same sex marriage ban would share her views.

Once again I was wrong. I was at a party last weekend with a few of my regular readers. I relayed Lauren's comments to them. All the women (regardless of sexual orientation) agreed with Lauren, and at least 75% of the men admitted that although they hadn't given it much thought, they could see Lauren's point.

My friend Brette Popper, a married Upper West Side mother of two girls, explained it best. "To say that you are 'ok' with the illegality of marrying people of the same gender is not only to say that you are 'ok' with the law of New York State, but to say that you agree with the underlying prejudice that informs that position." 

I want to make my position clear. I am in favor of both gay marriage and gay civil unions. I believe that same-sex couples should have the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples. But in my capacity as the chief marriage officer in the Town of Livingston, I agreed to follow the laws of the state and not marry people of the same gender. I hope that lends clarity to my position, and I will try to be more sensitive to how I write about issues like this in the future.

[jw]

Commentary: Ordinary, Like Us

Link: Independent Gay Forum
by Jennifer Vanasco

Excerpt:

First published in the Chicago Free Press, May 7, 2008

Young gays and lesbians want to be married. And have kids.

That's what the first survey of the aspirations of gay and lesbian youth discovered.

Rockway Institute reported that more than 90 percent of the lesbians and more than 80 percent of the gay males they surveyed "expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30."

About two-thirds of the males and just over half of the females said they thought it was very likely they'd have children.

What's extraordinary about this is just how very ordinary it is.

Ordinary for mainstream society, I mean. When we think of straight young people, we assume they want to get married and have children. There are always those who don't, of course, but they tend to be eccentric outliers.

The gay community, though, has long assumed the opposite of itself (especially gay men), and the mainstream world has assumed the same. Gays were thought to be promiscuous. Gays were artists, not parents. Gays were the outrageous life of the party, not couples who were in bed by 10 p.m.

But maybe the ordinariness of the survey results should not be such a surprise.

The survey participants were 16- to 22-year-olds in urban areas; they've grown up in a world where there are out gay members of Congress, out celebrities and rock stars, out mayors and athletes and CEOs and writers.

They've grown up with gay-straight alliances in their schools, with classmates who had out and happy gay parents, with discussions about whether saying "That's so gay" constitutes prejudice.

Gay and lesbian youth want stable marriages and children?

Of course they do.

Because they have grown up in an America where being gay is starting to seem unremarkable. Where being gay doesn't need to mean living a particular way. Where being gay doesn't have to mean putting limits on your future.

[...]

There have always been gays and lesbians who wanted monogamous partners and children, but until the past couple of years, they've been hidden from mainstream society by the gays and lesbians who get more attention – the promiscuous, the party-goers, the style tastemakers.

We love that part of our community. The absolutely fabulous gays are the ones that help define us as being creative, artistic, fun. They're the ones who help us feel special. Different.

But we're also the same.

And that basic similarity is what young gays and lesbians see right away. They have access to it. They know – already! at their age! – that they can have the life they want, whatever that life is.

They can do the party circuit. They can be successful government officials, or artists, or business owners. They can be parents.

Being gay doesn't limit them, because being gay is only one part of who they are. Or perhaps it's that the definition of being gay has expanded. It no longer means only eternal singlehood and a furtive life lived in gay bars and dark city parks. If a lesbian wants to be married, she doesn't have to pretend that she's living with her "best friend." If a gay man wants to be married, he doesn't have to marry a woman and then seek sex in public restrooms.

Now she can marry a woman, and he can marry a man.

And our gay and lesbian youth are planning to do exactly that.

[jw]

Commentary: The 'Real' New Gay Marriage

Link: Gay Wired
by Ross von Metzke

Love it or hate it, the New York Times Sunday magazine article, "Young Gay Rites," has engendered much thoughtful comment.

Excerpt:

I always joke with friends that I was a divorcee at 24.

Gay marriage isn’t legal in California—and, truth be told, there was no custody dispute over pets, no divvying up of furniture. We didn’t even live together… next door to each other, actually, because I always joked my dream home would be hacienda style—my wing, his wing and a courtyard for us to co-mingle.

But for three years, every birthday, vacation, movie night and family function was spent together. When Alan broke his knee, I shuttled him back and forth to physical therapy appointments for three months. When my friend Charles went MIA for 28 hours after the twin towers fell in Manhattan, he sat on the phone every hour on the hour while I worked, trying to get through to someone who might know how he was doing.

Ours was a real partnership—a monogamous partnership, I should add, which is a rarity for gay men in their early 20s. And at some point, admittedly, it became a partnership that failed—whether it was my resentment over staying in San Diego for him or his frustration that living next door to each other just didn’t cut it anymore, I’ll never know.

But we parted friends—amicably and with a hug—and to this day, I can safely say my ex and I have a better relationship than most former couples I know.

And now that I have a new boyfriend, I’d like to think I learned a few things the first time around. No marriage yet, we’re still in the early stages. But between nights of take out and a movie, me helping him shop for a car and him giving me advice on eliminating my credit card debt by the end of the year, we’re definitely past the honeymoon phase—and unlike couples who use that to suggest the romance has died, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean it in the best possible way.

What we aren’t, however, is Norman fucking Rockwell… we’re not Ivy League, bucking for country club membership or any other idealistic relationship stereotype—which is probably what bothered me so much about a recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine, documenting what writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis dubs “the new gay marriage.”

[...]

I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness—that would be far too cynical of me. And there is truth in the saying that “every relationship is different.”

But in the fundamental building blocks of what it takes to make a relationship work, no amount of face paint or photo shopping for one of the nation’s best respected news sources changes the fact that relationships take work—and at least through the images and the bulk of the couples profiled here, that seems to be the one thing nobody wants to stop and think about.

Gay couples want to be treated like everyone else, but that doesn’t mean we want to assimilate—especially to a version of marriage that went out with Leave it to Beaver and Quaaludes. Painting the picture that gay is great for all of America to see isn’t normal—it’s stereotypical, with the dinner parties and the blatant disregard for a dose of reality. And haven’t we endured the stereotypes long enough?

For a better representation of a gay wedding, try watching Brothers & Sisters, where the subject of gay marriage was brought up because one half of the Scotty/Kevin power couple doesn’t have health insurance. Those are real issues facing gay couples—not which argyle sweater goes best with the patio furniture.

Nice try, bad execution. For now, it might not make for a priceless photo op, but I'm perfectly content balancing video night with evenings out at the bars with our friends.

Squabbling and bickering included.

[jw]

In trespass trial, gay couple rips law banning their marriage

Link: The Rocky Mountain News

Excerpt:

Kate Burns, left, and Sheila Schroeder appear in Denver County Court on Tuesday. They are on trial for trespassing for refusing to leave the Denver County clerk's office in September after being denied an application for a marriage license. (George Kochaniec Jr. / The Rocky)

 

It's just a trial for trespassing.

But the defense attorney for Kate Burns and Sheila Schroeder seized every chance she could Tuesday to criticize the Colorado law that bans gay marriage.

The two were arrested on trespassing charges Sept. 24 when they refused to leave the Denver County clerk's office after being denied an application for a marriage license.

"These are two courageous women who stood up for their love and to speak out about a law that's unfair," said attorney Mari Newman, adding that just 40 years ago, it was illegal for people of different races to marry.

That prompted one of many objections by city attorneys and a clarification by Denver County Judge James Breese.

"This is a trespass charge," he told the six-woman jury. "Whether the law is a good law is not an issue in this case."

Lawyers for the couple challenged the consitutionality of Amendment 43, the voter-approved ballot measure that defines marriage in Colorado as the union of one man and one woman, but Breese said he could not decide that issue.

Schroeder testified that she she was somewhat afraid of getting arrested, but thought the Denver clerk might give them a license despite the law, as has happened in other states.

"It was important to get married because I love Kate Burns very much and I want that love to be honored in full view of the state and the country that I love," she said.

Once they were denied the license, Schroeder said they decided to engage in civil disobedience. They sat down, holding hands and the bouquets of flowers they brought in hopes of getting a marriage license.

"We sat down in front of the counter supported by our tax dollars that wasn't serving us that day," she said.

[...]

[jw]

Opinion: On gay rights, it's good to be out of step

Link: Baltimore Sun
by Leonard Pitts

Excerpt:

The Rev. James Lawson is out of step with modern Christianity.

Take gay marriage. Speaking in support of a proposed state constitutional ban on same sex unions in Florida, one Rev. Hayes Wicker of First Baptist Church in Naples, Fla., was recently quoted by the Naples Daily News as saying, "This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery."

As asinine as that remark is, it is perfectly in step with much of modern Christianity, which has spent years demonizing gay men and lesbians. And then there's Mr. Lawson, who spoke last weekend at the 10th anniversary conference of Soulforce, a group that fights church-based homophobia. Few things could be more "out" of step. Mr. Lawson, you may know, is an icon of the civil rights movement; it was he who invited the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis to support the striking sanitation workers. He sees his longtime involvement with Soulforce as part of the same struggle. "The human rights issue is not a single issue," he told me recently. "It is about all humankind. And all humankind has been endowed with certain inalienable rights."

[...]

Mr. Lawson finds the antipathy appalling. "To unite with white Christian fundamentalism like Pat Robertson is an absolute disgrace. For black people to pretend that kind of Christian fundamentalism, which justified slavery and justifies racism, is a colleague in anything is to be blind to the realities that we're facing. We who have suffered and do suffer should be the most sensitive to the suffering of others. We don't want this undeserved suffering put on us, and we should therefore, clearly, not participate in putting such suffering on others. We ought to know better."

Mr. Lawson knows his brand of Christianity is not the kind that nowadays dominates political discourse. Does it trouble him to be out of step?

"No. A part of the religion of Jesus is to be on the right side of history and the right side of God, especially when others are on the wrong side."

Those who preach intolerance "are the ones out of step. You have to be patient, and they'll catch up. Many of the black pastors were outraged when King, in '67, declared against the Vietnam War. Well, now, great numbers of the clergy are aware that war is a violation of the gospel of Jesus, and they are opposed to the Iraq war. They caught up."

Some did, at least. Ours is still an era wherein war, hatred and intolerance often wear a clerical collar. As Mr. Lawson puts it, "Much of Christianity in the United States has been more influenced by violence and sexism and racism and greed than by the teachings of Jesus."

If that seems a radical thing to say, well, Mr. Lawson has no apologies. "I am a follower of Jesus," he explains. "That's what I've called myself for decades. And that is a radical faith that refuses to define any human being or group of human beings as being outside God's grace."

James Lawson is out of step with modern Christianity.

Thank God someone is.

 

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald.

[jw]

Mildred Loving Who Won Landmark Interracial Marriage Ruling Dies

Link: AP via 365Gay.com

Excerpt:

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

[...]

In a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, Loving said she wasn't trying to change history - she was just a girl who once fell in love with a boy.

"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."

The Loving case was cited in the 2003 Massachusetts case that led to same-sex marriage in that state.

Unsurprisingly, Mildred Loving supported the freedom to marry for same-sex couples:

“When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

…Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.

…I am proud that Richard’s and my name are on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

[jw]

Commentary: Gaying Straight Marriage

Link: Columbia Spectator
by Ira Stup

Excerpt:

[...]

The thought of not being able to completely celebrate the happiness of my sisters, friends, and parents on a day important to them feels uncomfortable and depressing, if not outright selfish. But the fact remains: they want to celebrate their “big day,” and there are people in their lives, like myself, who are barred from doing the same. I am prevented from marrying at all, and LGBT people are denied the respect and rights given to married couples when we explore non-traditional relationship choices. How can these family members and friends purport to care about me and the struggle of other queer people when they participate in what is probably the most public symbol of heterosexual expression at my exclusion?

The matter is not much different from certain aspects of racial privilege. How can I use social, political, and economic privileges I receive as a white person when my black friend may have no access to these same privileges? While sometimes with race these privileges are not legally codified and can be harder to identify, the privilege of marriage isn’t even remotely obscure: LGBT people are openly discriminated against as they are prevented from receiving these social and legal protections.

From the clear and noticeable privileges of marriage for heterosexuals lie some powerful ways of making practical change. One of the most meaningful things which an ally of any community can do is to use their privilege to address social inequality. In this case, marriage affords a couple a forum to express and celebrate themselves. And if they care about LGBT issues, they have an obligation to all the people in the room who have either been hurt by heterosexual marriage norms or who cannot get married themselves. If my sisters, my friends, and my parents take my life seriously and consider their participation in an institution which discriminates against queer people, they must speak up. I cannot be fully present if they don’t recognize my diminished presence in their space.

There are many ways couples can use their marriage privilege to help practically make the institution more equitable. Every couple can make a statement at their wedding ceremony about their desire to let all people, LGBT and not, gain marriage rights. They can consider the language and norms their ceremony may reinforce. Their vows can rejoice in the transcendence of love beyond strict gender and sexual lines. If they have a religious leader, he or she can speak of equality from a religious and spiritual perspective. The couple can ask guests to donate to a marriage equality cause in addition to getting them a traditional gift.

These gestures and others help to not only recognize the inequality inherent in a heterosexual marriage, but to send an influential and symbolical message about the need to change an institution in which they are partaking. Even more powerful is that message being delivered at the most public and emblematic component of marriage, the ceremony itself. Neither academic discussions nor these gestures of change will necessarily transform the situation for LGBT people on any large scale. But the constant work of thoughtful people­—queer or not—to recognize the injustices and pain faced by the people around them and commitment to making change can indeed begin the process. I sincerely hope this column has had some small part in doing just that.

Ira Stup is a student in the School of General Studies majoring in American studies.The Problem With Normal runs alternate Mondays.

[jw]

Hunter College Poll of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Americans: Marriage rights matter most to younger gays

Link: iMAPP.org

Maggie Gallagher posted this item . . .

Excerpt:

A nationally representative poll (using Knowledge Networks internet panel data) of gays, lesbians and bisexuals has been released by Hunter College, paid for by HRC.

[...]

Same-sex marriage did not make the list of the top 5 political priorities of GLBs overall. It skyrockets, however, among 18-25 year olds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full report, in PDF format, is here.

The report says:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jw]

Huff Post Top Five Forgotten Stories: #2- Health Insurance Crisis Impacting Marriage Decisions

Link: The Huffington Post

Excerpt:

Chances are, when you look back on the past week several years from now, there won't be much you remember about the news that dominated your life. Something about how a presidential candidate had to distance himself from a preacher that took racy photographs of Miley Cyrus or something. But at the same time, if you are anything like a typical HuffPo reader or commenter, you won't forget having yearned for more substantive, important topics to have found their way into the news cycle.

That's something that comes through loud and clear in the emails and comments I receive while liveblogging the Sunday morning political shows. Many of the people who read the Sunday blog do so because they just can't stand to watch the parade of empty-headed yammerers but can't not stay engaged. There's a real longing for a news that more actively delves into topics that matter, offers penetrating analysis of problems, and mounts a real critique of political policy. People expect better from print news, better from cable news...better from HuffPo!

So this week, we're beginning a new end-of-the-week feature to rise to this demand, if only a little bit. Five Forgotten Stories will be a briefing on the sort of news story that we felt could have, and should have, gotten a wider play from the newshole. We invite all our readers to delve, discuss, and come back and make suggestions of your own.

[...]

2. Health Insurance Crisis Impacting Marriage Decisions

If there's two things the moralizers on the right love to do, it's deny Americans universal health care while enforcing their own definition of what a proper marriage should look like. But in a twist that's downright Freakonomical, the desperate times/desperate measures equation is forming an intersection with these two issues.

Some people marry for love, some for companionship, and others for status or money. Now comes another reason to get hitched: health insurance.

In a poll released today, 7% of Americans said they or someone in their household decided to marry in the last year so they could get healthcare benefits via their spouse.

"It's a small number but a powerful result, because it shows how paying for healthcare is reflected not only in family budgets but in life decisions," said Drew E. Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which commissioned the survey as part of its regular polling on healthcare.

A number of bloggers did mention this, including SusanG at Daily Kos, who commented:

Can't wait to hear the right-wing wurlitzer crank up to demand universal health insurance to preserve the sanctity of wedlock. Surely all those desperately non-insured brides and grooms hooking up are threatening the marriages of all the rest of us. Right?

[jw]

Gays Gettin' Hitched -- Moonie Style!

Link: Slog | The Stranger
by Dan Savage

Excerpt:

If the point is getting straight people to take same-sex marriage seriously, getting them to recognize the numerous injustices that bans on same-sex marriage rain down on the heads of committed gay couples and wocka wocka wocka, I don’t think mass, Moonie-style marriage ceremonies are really the best approach. Moonie marriages are legal, of course, recognized by the state and all that, but does anyone take them seriously? Well, The Matthew Shepard Foundation is planning a group commitment ceremony to kick off gay pride events in L.A. 

[...]

Um… uh… gee. There’s something about group commitment ceremonies—particularly ones crudely wedded to online jewelry “destinations”—that doesn’t make me think, “mmm… equality and stuff.” It makes me think, “mmm… crude and ineffective.” It will be particularly ineffective if, as some are speculating, out teevee star T.R. Knight decides to take part in the ceremony, committing to his boyfriend of six months, Marc Cornelsen, a UCLA student. Making a public spectacle of a premature commitment that is, as with most premature commitments, highly likely to end badly isn’t going to help our side. Participate if you must, T.R., but wait at least a year or two before you marry that boy.

[jw]

Right wing attacks "Dear Abby" over marriage stance

Link: Think Progress

In 2007, “Dear Abby” author Jeanne Phillips publicly — and controversially — spoke out in support of gay marriage. Since that time, she has become a target of conservatives. Today, the Washington Times highlights a recent analysis by the right-wing Culture and Media Institute, which concludes that Phillips has repeatedly “rejected traditional morality”:

“Abby has flown under the radar for years dispensing radical advice on matters of sexual morality while enjoying a reputation for hard-nosed, common-sense advice,” says Robert Knight, director of the institute. “We thought people ought to know there’s a pattern here that’s consistent throughout her career.” 

“Dear Abby, overall, dispenses good advice on most other matters,” Mr. Knight says, “but when it comes to sex, she is a disciple of the sexual revolution, which basically says if it feels good, do it.”

Last year, PFLAG honored Phillips with its “Straight for Equality Award.” “Dear Abby is one of the most trusted advice columnists in the world and rightfully so,” said PFLAG spokesman Steve Ralls.

[jw]

"Is same-sex marriage just for white people?"

Link: The Bilerico Project
by Alex Blaze

Excerpt:

Earlier this week, I posted about the lengthy article in the NY Times Sunday magazine that profiled young, married gay couples in Massachusetts. The couples were all white and wealthy, and I took author Benoit Denizet-Lewis to task over that - it would have been great for the article to have been inclusive. 

He did include an explanation as to why he only profiled white people that appeared on quite a few blogs discussing the issue: 

To find out, I spent time over the next few months with a handful of young married and engaged gay couples -- including Joshua and Benjamin. All were college-educated and white. (A 2008 study of gay and lesbian couples in Vermont, California and Massachusetts -- three states that offer some form of legal recognition for gay couples -- found that "couples who choose to legalize their same-sex relationships... are overwhelmingly European American.")

[...] 

While I'm critical of the central role marriage has played in LGBT activism at the expense of other issues, I've never bought the idea that it's just a "white" issue. It'd be paternalistic of me to try to decide for Black LGBT folks what to work for and plain insulting to think that I would know better than leaders in the Black LGBT community. On the other hand, a false "we're all the same and equal already" would be wrong as it would mask racial disparity, if it exists. 

I also didn't think it was true - same-sex couples come in all colors. But identifying as a couple isn't the same thing as registering as partners, getting civilly united, or marrying, where those options are available.

I was interested in that "2008 study of gay and lesbian couples," as were several friends I talked to, some people in the comments of the other post, a few of the listserves I'm on, and quite a few other bloggers (the Blade's blog, Visible Vote, Queerty, Tin Man, and Joan Garry, to name a few). So I emailed Denizet-Lewis and he responded with study, which was three questionnaire-based studies of registered/married same-sex couples in Massachusetts, Vermont, and California. [Ed. note: The URL supplied by Bilerico for the study was truncated. Here is the URL from an article on Queerty.]

In each of these three states, the researchers found a list of same-sex couples and wrote them a letter asking them to participate in the study (which wasn't about demographics, exactly; the study was about their attitudes towards marriage and other information was collected as a part of that study). 

Anyway, in Vermont, 18% of the civilly united folks responded (the questionnaire was to individuals, not couples). In California, 400 couples were selected (3.7% of the couples with same-sex DP's), and 258 completed questionnaires were received (that's 54% of those selected, 1.8% of the total). In Massachusetts, the researchers contacted the 422 same-sex married couples in Cambridge and Somerville who married in 2004. 31% turned in completed surveys. 

In other words, the study can't be said to have found the demographics of same-sex couples in California, Vermont, and Massachusetts. The participants self-selected in many ways that led them to answer the survey or not, or, in the case of Massachusetts, living in Cambridge and Somerville was a requirement. The researchers even say (emph. mine): 

Table 1 shows the gender and race/ethnicity composition of all 924 participants from the three states. The sample was overwhelmingly European American (83.1% in California, 88.8% in Massachusetts, and 93.3% in Vermont).

[...] 

Furthermore, "overwhelmingly" turned out to be "83.1% in California, 88.8% in Massachusetts, and 93.3% in Vermont." According to Census data (via Wikipedia; yeah, I'm a blogger, not an academic), California is 79.07% white, Massachusetts is 87.89%, and Vermont is 97.95%. 

Californian same-sex couples who participated in the study are more slightly more likely to be white than their state in general, those in Vermont are slightly less, and those in Massachusetts are about the same. 

In other words, the fact that most same-sex couples in those three states were found to be white can be attributed possibly to: 

• self-selection via survey participation, 
• selection by those performing the study, and 
• a reflection of the state's demographics.

That data does not support the idea that same-sex marriage is just for white people, to answer the question in the title. 

But I was also interested in why Denizet-Lewis chose to profile only white people, and he explains in an email to me: 

You might also be interested to know that I spent a month looking for a young married couple of color from Mass to include in the story. I found one--an Asian couple, who were in their early 30s. But they had a long-distance relationship, so I wouldn't have been able to hang out with them together enough. I desperately tried to find a young married couple of color, because I knew I would be attacked for not including any. But, in the end, there wasn't anything I could do. I'm sure there must be a handful out there, but in my searching (and there is no statewide databse that has the race, or even the ages, of gay married couples), I didn't find any. The fact is that in Massachusetts, young gay men who are getting married are mostly white, and they're mostly middle and upper-middle class.
My story represented that truth.

He only looked in Massachusetts to find married-with-that-specific-word same-sex couples. 

I'm still contacting more people and trying to find out more here, because this is a potentially large question with big, complex answer for the LGBT community, in terms of what it says about our activism, our race relations, what we think about marriage, and what the future of the LGBT community will look like. 

I'll keep you posted.

[jw]

The sex inspector; Gay sex guru Michael Alvear helped save the marriages of several straight couples, then lost the love of his own life

Link: Creative Loafing Atlanta

Excerpt:

With a million television viewers in the United Kingdom watching, Michael and Katie sit down on a bed.

Katie is in her mid-20s. But her face is marked by the physical and emotional exhaustion of a long-term relationship with Mark that has grown tense and largely sexless since the birth of their child.

Katie wants her partner to be more assertive in the bedroom, but has to modify her own behavior if it's going to happen. That's why she's with Michael.

Michael is the co-host of "The Sex Inspectors," a reality show that helps struggling straight couples reinvent their sex lives. The show debuted in the U.K. in 2004 and on HBO in the United States in 2005. Cameras in Katie's and Mark's bedroom allowed Michael to study how the couple interacts. Viewing the footage, he easily spotted one of the reasons Katie's partner had become less assertive and affectionate, and he's ready to talk to her about it.

"Can I show you what you do?" Michael asks, after they sit down on the bed.

He invites her to put her arm around him. But as her arm touches his back, he slaps it and turns away.

"I'm not that bad, am I?" she asks, laughing nervously.

"How did that feel?" Michael asks.

"It's just blatantly 'don't touch me' isn't it?"

"What else do you feel?" he asks.

"Rejected, which is kind of sad. It's not a nice feeling."

"It makes you feel hurt, rejected, abandoned and not very loved. Fair?"

"Definitely," she says.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

She nods and Michael leans in to whisper in her ear: "Men have feelings, too."

After spending much of his professional writing career in Atlanta on the fringe as a gay relationship columnist and author, Michael Alvear didn't decide one day to go mainstream. The mainstream came to him.

Alvear, 49, is no longer merely a gay sex and relationships guru. He's a sex and relationships guru who happens to be gay.

He is proud, he says, to be part of a cultural movement that shifted the common perception of gay people away from malicious, hateful stereotypes.

"Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" was a great leap forward, Alvear says, precisely because its central premise became passé so quickly. Gay people advising straight people is now so OK that it's almost dull.

Alvear, however, has just relearned the painful lesson that even though he may be a mainstream figure whose work appeals to both straights and gays, he's still ostracized in many essential ways from the straight world.

While in London, Alvear met the man he considers the love of his life. They want to build a life together in Atlanta. The only way Alvear's boyfriend can get a visa to stay in the United States is through marriage. But because they're in a same-sex relationship, they can't legally marry.

The striking difference between the two worlds hit home recently when Alvear was in a dressing room preparing for a television appearance. He overheard a woman talking about falling in love with a Brit. "I met the most wonderful British guy," she said. "I married him and now he can work here."

It was a wrenching conversation for Alvear to hear. "Isn't it rich?" he asks. "I've helped so many straight people improve their love lives and yet it's straight policy that has ruined mine."

[...]

Even though it was popular, "The Sex Inspectors" stopped airing after its third season. When Alvear returned home to Atlanta for good, Robert came with him.

Alvear immersed himself in his next project, a relationship advice website called Blabbermash.

His most talked-about columns, he says, have always been the ones with the best questions. Blabbermash features user-generated videos of sex and relationship questions. The answers are secondary.

While Alvear put Blabbermash together last year, Robert looked for work as a financial analyst and tried to find a way to stay in the United States permanently.

He had two ways of obtaining a long-term visa: Marriage or an employer willing to sponsor him to get a coveted H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to stay in the United States for three years.

Marriage was out of the question because gay and lesbian marriages aren't legally recognized in the United States, or under U.S. immigration law.

Robert also couldn't obtain an H-1B visa. Post-9/11 security concerns, and more recently, anti-immigrant sentiment in Congress, have conspired to cut the number of H-1Bs available annually from 132,000 in 2004 to just 65,000 last year. With so many high-tech firms desperate for overseas talent, the State Department gave out all of 2007's H-1Bs in just two months.

Robert couldn't stay without a visa. Alvear couldn't leave behind his life in Atlanta to move to England and start all over again.

So when Robert's visa expired seven months ago, he moved back to London and left their relationship in limbo.

"I've never really experienced that kind of blatant discrimination before – that you're nothing, you mean nothing, you are nothing, you are worthless," Alvear says.

Several years ago, he was with a friend walking to a gay nightclub when they narrowly escaped being attacked by a group of kids carrying baseball bats and pipes.

"This is the same feeling I had when those four guys came out with bats and pipes," Alvear says. "One is physical assault and one is psychological. After this, it's hard for me to sit here and say we're living in the golden age of gay acceptance. Life for gays is so much better than it was, but sometimes it's still glaring."

[...]

[jw]

Commentary: Caught Between the Wild Party and the Wedding Party

Link: WayneBesen.com
by Wayne Besen

Excerpt:

When I first came out in 1988, if two young gay people met, the reaction often was, "You too! I thought I was alone." As my twenty-year high school reunion approaches, I witnessed an identical response in a seminal New York Times Magazine cover story. At a coffee shop in Boston, two gay men, Aaron and George, met for the first time.

"I thought I was the only one." "Me too!"

What differed was that these two young men were relieved to meet because they were legally divorced and had not met peers who had experienced similar situations. While we have a long journey towards full equality ahead of us, it is a dramatically different world than the one I came out in.

[...]

I sometimes hardly recognize the gay community's social scene. When I first came out, many gay bars had a back room, which was a dark crevice where men furtively had sex. Today, a dark room likely means a gay couples' row house den with mood lighting. Contemporary gay bars have largely gone from seedy to chic and - for better or worse - often attracting many straight people.

An older friend of mine who visited Boston half-jokingly complained, "There's something morally wrong with a city where it's easier to marry a boyfriend than find a gay bar."

His observation was spot on. Boston Globe writer Robert David Sullivan told National Public Radio this week that he noticed the number of gay bars in Boston had been cut in half in recent years.

Massachusetts is not the only place the gay social scene has been transformed. Fortune Magazine named gay bars as one of the 10 businesses it thinks is facing extinction. It joined a list of has-beens that includes record stores and crop dusting. Additionally, overt street cruising is out of fashion and demure glances have largely replaced outright ogling.

The decline in the public sex culture and gay bars can be attributed, in part, to the rise of the Internet. However, a larger trend, captured by the Times magazine article, is at work. A good portion of men in their mid 20's have been out of the closet for more than a decade. (They were barely in) Having had a normal adolescence, they are already burnt out on gay bars and ready to start families.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Washington and met up with the friends I used to party with in the mid to late 90's. Today, they are all in long-term relationships and in bed by the time they used to wake up from their disco naps.

The changes in the gay social scene have happened so fast that they are sometimes difficult to comprehend. It's as if someone slipped a roofie into the GLBT community's mimosa and while we slept Rudy Giuliani swooped down in drag and cleaned up our Times Square.

Sometimes, I fondly reminisce about the good old days. Then, I recall that that the endless party was a product of our oppression. The storied "days" were actually really late nights - and as I get older, I want to be up on Sunday morning in time to watch "Meet the Press."

Caught between the wild party and wedding party generations, the rapid pace of change can seem unsettling, yet reassuring.

"Am I the only one who feels this way?"

"You, too! Thank, God."

Commentary: The Rainbow Picket Fence

Link: Mombian
by Dana Rudolph

Full text by permission.

Both the New York Times and Details magazine have just published articles that look at the “settling down” of gay male culture. The Times, in a Sunday Magazine cover story, explores the trend of even young gay men in their 20’s getting married. Details looks at “The Gay Baby Boom.”

It’s a good thing that mainstream media is finally realizing there’s more to gay life than darkened bars and sparkly drag shows. At the same time, I can’t help but think: Didn’t we gals go through this already? Newsweek’s famous cover article on “Lesbians: Coming Out Strong” appeared back in 1993, and these days you can’t find a lesbian on mainstream television who isn’t trying to become a parent.

I guess that’s old news by now. Old news, it seems, is soon forgotten. Detail’s Edward Lewine says “And as with many trends, the increase in gay fathers has afforded its own terminology: the gayby boom.” Hold it right there: “Gayby boom” was a term first applied to gay and lesbian parents across the board, not just gay dads, back in 1990. (”The Future of Gay America,” Newsweek, March 12, 1990. Thanks, Word Spy.) With 22 to 28 percent of lesbian households in the 2000 U.S. Census (PDF link) having children in them (including those over 18), versus 5 to 14 percent of gay male households, and one in three lesbians having given birth versus one in six gay men having fathered a child, it’s fair to say we dykes were a driving force in the need for such a term. I’m happy to acknowledge a baby boom among gay men, but let’s not attribute the origin of the phrase to them alone.

Lewine also reports:

And it’s not just gay couples who are investigating IVF. Many homosexual men have decided to go it alone, which provides at least one tangible bonus: While single parenthood can be a turnoff on the heterosexual dating scene, being a single gay dad is—there’s really no other word for it—hot.

“In the gay community, having a child as a single man is a sign of assertiveness,” [gay dad] Ron Poole-Dayan says. “It’s also appealing to know this is a gay man who isn’t afraid of commitment.” Poole-Dayan says he’s seen six out of the seven single gay dads he knows pair off after the births of their children.

Funny, the three books about single moms I’ve reviewed recently (Choosing You, Knock Yourself Up, and My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy don’t view single parenthood as such a dating boon. Double standard? No. I’m not sure a child is really a dating accessory even for gay men. Lewine and Poole-Dayan are confusing cause and effect. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that gay men, like others who choose to become single parents, usually do so not because they want to parent by themselves, but because they haven’t found the right person by the time the parental urge becomes overwhelming and the biological clock starts ticking down. If six of seven single gay dads find partners after becoming parents (and that’s not scientific data), it’s not because children are a hot dating accessory, but because men who have children are also likely to desire the whole family package, partner included. Usually, a partner comes first, but not always.

Both the Times and Details remind me, though, that while the LGBT community forms a certain whole, it is at times more a loose federation than a unified construct. We may all be plunging towards a life filled with white picket fences and strollers, but we are coming from different places and moving at different rates. Some of us, too, may choose not to go there.

LGBT activist Wayne Besen observes “The changes in the gay social scene have happened so fast that they are sometimes difficult to comprehend. . . . Caught between the wild party and wedding party generations, the rapid pace of change can seem unsettling, yet reassuring.”

Luckily for those gay men who find themselves unsettled, there’s bound to be a couple of lesbian moms (if not lesbian grandmas) down the street who will invite them in for some comforting advice over herbal tea and hummus.

[jw]

Daily Kos: Getting Hitched for Health Insurance

Link: Daily Kos

SusanG on Daily Kos asks:

The Los Angeles Times this morning, reporting on a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll:

WASHINGTON -- Some people marry for love, some for companionship, and others for status or money. Now comes another reason to get hitched: health insurance.

In a poll released today, 7% of Americans said they or someone in their household decided to marry in the last year so they could get healthcare benefits via their spouse.

Can't wait to hear the right-wing wurlitzer crank up to demand universal health insurance to preserve the sanctity of wedlock. Surely all those desperately non-insured brides and grooms hooking up are threatening the marriages of all the rest of us. Right?

[jw]

Commentary: "Normal" Gay People in the New York Times

Link: The Huffington Post
by Joan Garry

Excerpt:

Maybe I'm just trying to distract myself from "Democratic Celebrity Death Match." But I don't think so. I've been quite focused this week on the cover story of this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine -- the story called "Young Gay Rites." Do take a minute to read it online if you haven't seen it. You will no doubt have varying reactions to it -- some will reflect on the couples, some on the journalist, many on you.

The piece offers a very narrow swath of gay "married" life (maybe we should use the word in quotes until we have all the same state and federal legal rights and responsibilities as straight people) -- young white men in their 20s in the state of Massachusetts. The photography is clever ("kitschy" would be the gay adjective) and as a sociological portrayal of a small niche, I suppose it was rather good. But a cover story? A cover that teases the piece this way: "Life among young men who are married (to men) in Massachusetts could not be more normal. Strange."

Strange indeed.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have been with my partner since I was 23. By the time I was the age of the men profiled, we owned a home in the suburbs, had joint bank accounts and yes, two cats. I know from settling down in my 20s. And I don't know -- call me old fashioned -- but I considered it a sign of maturity. The right to "marry" was not available to us in 1983 but had it been, we'd have avoided "living in sin" lo these many years. In fact, it could be said that the strangest thing about us was that we were not and could not be "married" like our straight neighbors.

The journalist appeared to be making a case that the profiled couples were normal and not strange. Instead, Mr. Denizet-Lewis introduces us to couples who are silly, vacuous and naïve. "We've thought a lot about household roles," says Marc about his partner Vassili. "I'm going to clean and Vassili is going to cook." At another point, Benjamin reminds Joshua that he is 25 and not 24. "Am I desperately trying to hold onto my youth," Joshua asks his partner. "Honey, am I a gay cliché?"

Bingo. And while you are at it Joshua, you might want to attempt to hold onto your dignity.

[...]

To Joshua and Benjamin, Brandon L and Brandon A, to Marc and Vassili, to Jason and Paul -- I wish I knew more about you. I bet you have interesting lives and careers. And I wish you all the happiness in the world. I hope you use several of your 15 minutes of fame to educate a few people about what your Massachusetts marriage license provides you with and all the rights it does not. And I wish for you as much happiness in your relationships after 27 years as I have in mine. 

And it may seem strange but I hope your lives are never normal.

[jw]

Commentary: The Dollar Purple

Link: The Bilerico Project
by Alex Blaze

Excerpt:

I was reading that lengthy article in the NY Times about young gay couples who are getting married, but at about page 6 I wanted to jump out the window so I could run around the street screaming, so I just stopped. It's one of the most irritating things I've ever read without being paid.

It's hard to see much of a point to Benoit Denizet-Lewis's profiling of these couples other than to present an image of gay marriage that's

1. rich,
2. white, and, without question,
3. the best goddamned thing ever.

Most of the couples interviewed by Denizet-Lewis at least present the signs of excessive affluence (monogrammed slippers, antique furniture from all over the world, catered sushi parties, jobs at law firms, and degrees from MIT) and the one group of young, gay men he interviewed was described as "five working professionals" in their 20's and "two college undergraduates."

For all the talk from those advocating for marriage as a solution to economic disparity between queer and straight people, let's just say that it didn't, um, shine through here.

And queer couples make an average of earn around $7000 less than straight couples, according to the most recent US Census. It's not like they're rolling in it.

This is a standard right-wing attack against same-sex marriage and sexual orientation based job protections, that gays are so rich that they don't need the rights associated with it. And after reading a simple majority of this article, I come away with the same feeling that Tin Man did regarding the wealthiness of it all:

The photos also bother me because they play into the stereotype that all gay men are affluent and privileged and don't really need the economic benefits that marriage would bring or the job protections that an employment nondiscrimination law would bring. They also play into the stereotype that we're all fabulous curiosities instead of real people who don't have equal rights.[...]

Gay people are not all supercool. Enough already.

While I don't really know the financial specifics of the couples involved (even though they're clearly being presented as wealthy), Denizet-Lewis says that they're all white and explains why:

But with no model for how to build a young gay marriage, I was curious about how gay men in their 20s would choose to construct and maintain their unions. What would their marriages look like? And would the expectation of monogamy, a longstanding cornerstone of heterosexual marriage, be a requirement for their marriages as well?

To find out, I spent time over the next few months with a handful of young married and engaged gay couples -- including Joshua and Benjamin. All were college-educated and white. (A 2008 study of gay and lesbian couples in Vermont, California and Massachusetts -- three states that offer some form of legal recognition for gay couples -- found that "couples who choose to legalize their same-sex relationships... are overwhelmingly European American.")

At least he knows his sample is skewed.

[...]

Aside from those two criticisms, what sticks out is how sickeningly sweet the couples in this article are. Sure, I'm probably as close to the stereotype of a bitter queen as someone in his 20's can get, but I'm sure even normal human beings would want to tell this kids to take a step back from the edge.

Most of the couples say that they're going to get married because it's "obvious," "inevitable," and because they know that they're going to stay together forever. I'd hate to go into full Bitter Queen mode and point out the fact that almost half of all marriages in the US end in divorce nowadays, and I doubt they're all planning on getting divorced from the start, but it seems pertinent here.

I'm not against marriage. Far from it. But people who go down that path should have a realistic idea of what they're getting into, and I had hopes that queers would be further along in the path towards relationship realism because of our outsider status with respect to many of the pressures that push straight couples towards marriage-with-unrealistic-expectations.

[...]

This might be a good representation of young, gay married couples, or it might be remembered as a stark reminder of what happens when a generation of queers grows up bombarded with "pro-marriage" and "pro-family" rhetoric from the Religious Right and an LGBT movement focused on co-opting that language to fashion a plea for sympathy based on "If you think marriage is the best thing ever, then why don't you let us participate? Huh?"

Although, as a man in his 20's in a relationship with another man, I didn't see anything even close to my reality in that article. So maybe it's just lazy journalism.

But I still have a message to the writer: You're not helping!

[jw]

VT: A story of love but not marriage

Link: Barre Montpelier Times Argus

Excerpt:

Monique Signorat was not a person who spoke publicly too often – least of all about herself.

But on Nov. 17, 2007, she stood up among a crowd of more than 100 who gathered at Lyndon State College to testify before the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection and told her story.

Signorat's story is also the story of Anne Marie Marano – a woman she met in graduate school nearly 30 years ago. They fell in love, moved to Vermont, were joined in a civil union in 2001, pooled their income and bought a house together.

Marano died in January 2007 after a seven-year battle with cancer, ending their 28-year romance.

"I was at her side when she died," Signorat told the crowd at the hearing last year. "I was holding her hand. For better and for worse. In sickness and in health. Till death did us part."
"Please," she added. "Call it what it is. Marriage."

Since July 2000, when the Vermont Legislature passed its landmark civil unions law, thousands of same-sex couples have come here to be legally joined in unions. But for many couples the law was a compromise on the further goal of expanding marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

[...]

Toward the end of her battle with cancer, Signorat quit working to stay home and care for her partner. Marano's father offered her a spot in the family grave plot, right next to her.

"I had a lot of casserole dinners left at my doorstep," she said.

It was not as simple with the federal government, which doesn't recognize civil unions. Signorat missed out on some survivor's benefits from her long relationship with Marano, but as far as the federal government was concerned she was just another person on a will.

"All the federal government sees are two single people," she said. "They don't know that this special thing happened between us. And that's real unfortunate."

Despite being in a committed relationship with Marano for 28 years, Signorat said she was mostly in the closet to many people, including co-workers at Turtle Island Children's Center and National Life Insurance Company in Montpelier.

Signorat surrounded herself with friends and family members when she spoke to the same-sex marriage panel last year. She had never spoken out publicly, in front of strangers, lawmakers and the media, about her relationship or the death of her partner.

But she knew what she had to say was more important than clinging to a sense of shyness.

"We had a marriage," Signorat said. "I don't know why we are calling it something different. Let's call it what it is."

[jw]

MA: Young Marriage

Link: New York Times

[Editor's note: This excerpt is from a 10-page article in The New York Times.]

Excerpt:

[...] 

In 2004, when I was 28, CNN asked me to gather together a group of my Boston friends in their 20s for a short segment about gay marriage. The network wanted to know what young gay men in Massachusetts thought about our newfound right.

For nearly an hour, seven of us — five working professionals in our 20s and two college undergraduates — sat in a coffee shop and talked theoretically about what a young gay marriage might entail. In the end, most of us agreed that we would like to be married — just not yet. We still had a lot of living, and growing up, to do. While many of our heterosexual peers undoubtedly did as well, we were immune from the pressure some of them felt to marry. No one — not our friends, not our families, not the gay community — expected us to wed. 

For the next few years, I didn’t give young gay marriage much thought. While thousands of gay men and lesbians in their 30s, 40s or 50s married in Massachusetts, none of us at the table that night did, even as several of us inched into our 30s. I assumed that marriage — what the gay playwright Terrence McNally recently called “the final civil right; the right to love as anyone else loves” — was a right appreciated only in gay middle age. 

But then something strange happened. During a 10-day span last August and September, two friends of mine — Brandon Andrew, who was then 25, and Marc Brent, who was 24 — announced their respective engagements. Brandon called from his apartment in Boston to deliver the news. “You’re not going to believe this!” he told me, pausing for dramatic effect. “I’m engaged!” 

He was right. It was hard to believe. Not only was the prospect of two Brandons marrying each other surreal (his boyfriend, who was then 24, is named Brandon Lehr), but Brandon A. didn’t strike me as the marrying type. Not at this point in his life, anyway. An outgoing, freethinking art student in his last year at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, he seemed far too busy DJ’ing at eclectic dance parties and breaking into construction sites for his installation art projects to worry about marriage. 

Marc, a dental-office manager who still lived at home with his parents in a Boston suburb, didn’t call to tell me about his engagement. I learned about it instead on Facebook, when, with little fanfare, he changed the relationship status on his profile from “In a Relationship” to “Engaged.” He had been dating his fiancé, Vassili Shields, who was then 23, for a year. 

“Are you actually engaged,” I called to ask Marc, “or is that just your way of saying you really like Vassili?” He replied that he was, in fact, engaged. They planned to marry in a few months. 

I didn’t know what to make of these engagements — or of my subsequent discovery that more than 700 gay men 29 or younger had married in Massachusetts through last June, the latest date for which numbers are available. On the one hand, I wondered why these guys were marrying so young. What was the rush? It seemed to me that one of the few advantages of being young gay men — until gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, at least — was that we were institutionally protected from ever appearing on “Divorce Court.” 

[...]

UPDATES:

Andrew Sullivan comments:

The cover-story in today's NYT magazine is a vivid and fascinating encounter with the first generation of gay men who actually have the chance to marry in the same way and at the same time as their heterosexual peers. The silly photo-illustrations underline a very simple point: there is something very natural about wanting to turn one's sexual and emotional attraction to another human being into a lasting bond. Every connection is unique, and defies easy generalization, but the themes are universal: securing love, seeking stable companionship, integrating into one's own family, building a home and a future with another person. The NYT's wedding section has an example of exactly such a moment:

“It was pretty simple,” Mr. Self said. “We were both at that point in life when we had dated a lot of people and were looking for a partner to be able to build a life with and not just date casually.” The couple discussed their future together.

“Did we want to have a family? Did we want to stay in New York? What did we want to do with our careers? How did we feel about monogamy?” Mr. Self recalled of their questions to each other. “And it became very clear to us that we were on the same page.” After eight months they moved in together in Brooklyn Heights... 

Mr. Fraley said they wanted to formalize their union before considering having children. “We have very traditional New York City family values,” Mr. Fraley said.

It's important to remember when you read of such self-evidently constructive relationships that they are banned in 40 states, and that the president of the United States believes that they are destructive of family life. In fact, one political party is now dedicated to demonizing these people and denying them basic legal protections and validity. Targeting these couples as examples of moral degeneracy is given legitimacy by the Pope himself. And preventing them from having civil equality is now a core plank of the Republican party. Ask yourself: are these couples in any way hurting anyone? How can they ever be understood as threat to anyone else's relationship or marriage or family? It makes no sense at all. 

All one can say is that at some point in the future, sane people of all political persuasions will see this current Republican and Catholic and Fundamentalist orthodoxy as the mean-spirited madness it is. Meanwhile, those of us building these families will carry on. It's encouraging to see so many unintimidated by the campaign of hatred and obloquy directed toward them. Rock on, guys. And don't let the haters get you down.

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin adds his observation:

[...]

And I think that this the real “threat” that social conservatives find in same-sex marriage: it humanizes us.

They’ve established a massive multi-million dollar industry to convince Americans that gays and lesbians are evil monsters threatening western civilization. Focus On the Family has 1300 employees. Think of it: that’s larger than many factories. And they use their massive resources — their broadcast outlets and their print publications — to portray us as being a part of an evil agenda bringing America to its knees. And until now, they’ve had free reign to say whatever they want about gay people. When few Americans were able to see real world examples to counter their false stereotype, it represented a very powerful wedge.

But gay couples getting married and setting up households couldn’t be more conventional. It is tangible evidence that we’re not all that different in many important ways. We get together for all the same reasons — good and bad — that straight couples do. Some of our relationships are long lasting and monogamous (something that social conservatives say is impossible) and some fall apart or experience a series of affairs (just like straight couples’ marriage.) Some should never have gotten together in the first place.

But for many of us, we are yet another household on the same block with dozens of other families. We’re attending PTA and homeowner association meetings. We go to block parties and neighborhood Christmas parties. We go to each others’ homes and play cards or have barbecue. We send graduation gifts, we wave goodbye when people move away, and we call on our neighbors to offer condolences when tragedy strikes.

And nothing could be more threatening to social conservatives than that.

[km]

Presbyterian minister awaits verdict on marriages

Link: Santa Rosa Press Democrat, CA

Excerpt:

Rev. Jane Spahr now awaits the verdict following a two-hour trial Friday before the Presbyterian Church’s highest court on charges that she violated church law by marrying same-sex couples.

“It’s been wonderfully inspiring,” Spahr, 65, a lesbian activist, said in a telephone interview. “So we wait, but we’re with wonderful family and friends.”

Spahr has acknowledged marrying gay and lesbian couples, saying it is a matter of principle and conscience.

Critics and church prosecutors say she is flouting Presbyterian law which defines marriage as “a civil contract between a woman and a man.”

A 16-member Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly is expected to issue a verdict Monday. The body heard the case at the denomination’s national headquarters in Louisville, Ky.

Spahr said she couldn’t predict how the ruling might go, but one of the women she married expressed optimism.

“This body seemed open-minded,” said Sherrill Figuera of Guerneville. “I hope, pray and believe that the spirit will move their hearts and they will realize that now is the time for change.”

[...]

[jw]

Canada: Retired female priests tie knot

Link: The Province

 

Excerpt:

Retired priests Ruth Pogson, 83, and Beth Aime, 79, exchanged vows at Island View Nursing Home yesterday. Though both served the Anglican faith their whole careers, the church did not sanction or bless their union.
Photograph by : Darren Stone, Times Colonist

 

With popping corks and tinkling glasses, with laughter and with tears, Ruth Pogson, 83, and Beth Aime, 79, exchanged simple, loving vows in Island View nursing home yesterday.

The two retired Anglican priests, committed to each other since 1995, wanted to make their relationship legal, said Pogson.

"What we're here for is about justice and it's about bringing a community into an inclusive community rather than being shut out all the time," Aime told their guests. "We're here to hopefully bring this world somewhere where we're all equal.

The Anglican Church of Canada, to whom they have devoted decades of their lives, was not there to marry them or to bless them. Pogson and Aime were married in a civil ceremony in front of a small group of family and friends.

The same-sex marriage issue has created a major schism in the Anglican Church. Last June, the general synod of the Anglican Church of Canada voted narrowly not to bless same-sex unions. Still, the dioceses of Ottawa, Montreal and Niagara later decided to do so. Since November, 15 parishes -- including Metchosin's St. Mary of the Incarnation -- have broken away, dismayed by what they see as the church's liberal drift.

In 2002, the Vancouver-area Diocese of New Westminster became the first to bless same sex relationships. The Diocese of British Columbia, which includes Vancouver Island, does not. In fact, Pogson and Aime have not been allowed to preach and practice since they moved to Vancouver Island in 2002.

On Friday, Pogson, who is in a wheelchair and requires care, will move to St. Jude's Anglican Nursing Home in Vancouver, where Aime is already renting an apartment. Like many older couples, they will live apart and visit often. They hope their union will eventually be blessed in the Diocese of New Westminster when their new parish St. Clare-in-the-Cove has permission to bless same sex couples, said Aime.

"I'm happy they're getting married. I'm happy they found happiness with each other. Isn't this what life is all about," said Peter Elliott, dean of Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of New Westminster.

"There's nothing new about gay and lesbian people living in committed partnerships. The difference in Canada, and I thank God for it, is that we can live openly and we can receive the support of our community and church and that makes a huge difference in the quality of life."

[...]

[jw]

MA: For gay official, vows that validate

Link: Boston Globe

Excerpt:

David Colton will wed tomorrow.
(George Rizer / Globe Staff File / 2007)

 

They met by chance in Amsterdam one night 11 years ago.

Their journey has taken them through challenging times, when slurs and threats were hurled at two men holding hands and, later, through the successful fight for same-sex marriage. And, now, finally, matrimony.

Tomorrow, Easton Town Administrator David Colton will marry his longtime partner, Brian Khoo, an interior designer from Malaysia. It will be a black-tie event. The five Easton selectmen will attend. So will state Senator Brian A. Joyce, a legislative supporter of gay marriage who will deliver a speech on the subject.

In a perfect world, Colton said, there would be no need for such a speech at his wedding. And becoming the first gay town administrator in the state to get married would not deserve particular note.

But, for now, Colton said, he sees his marriage as a validation of a fight for equality - of his work to become a successful town administrator, regardless of his sexual orientation.

"I never wanted to be the gay town administrator; I never wanted to be the gay leader; I just wanted to be the leader," he said during an interview last week. "You have to risk being defined that way in order to shed the label. How do you dispel that rumor until you speak it?"

So, tomorrow's wedding takes on special importance - and attention. "It gets to the point of why gay marriage is so important to people, to me," said Colton, 50. "It's almost like a validation of all the effort, of maintaining a relationship."

[...]

Things improved, but slowly. Colton said that, for him, the shift is marked by a phone call he received a few years ago from a Milton selectman, who called to express support for an opinion piece Colton penned on same-sex marriage for a local newspaper. "He was so warm, so sincere about it, that it wasn't about work," Colton said. "It was a friendly gesture, not a political gesture."

Khoo saw things change, too, and he said it's not simply "the fact that gays are able to get married in Massachusetts." "It's got to be something else. It's got to be the mentality of people changing, beyond acceptance, beyond tolerance."

[...]

The couple will continue to live in the two-story condo they share in Boston, where Khoo claims decorating rights. They share cooking and are negotiating whether to add a dog to their household.

Colton said the wedding is what romantics might call the end of a chapter.

"It is something to celebrate."

[jw]

VT: Editorial--A new reality

Link: Rutland Herald

The atmosphere surrounding the issue of gay marriage has changed substantially since the furor that gripped the state eight years ago. That was when the Vermont Legislature became the first in the nation to institute civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.

A commission appointed by the Legislature last year to study the issue of gay marriage has presented its report amid a resounding absence of controversy. The commission held a series of meetings around the state to hear all sides of the issue, but mostly what they heard were pleas by Vermonters to enact full marriage equality by moving beyond civil unions to civil marriage.

Two groups opposed to gay marriage decided at the outset to boycott the hearings, but their absence could not account for the lack of interest by opponents. Eight years ago no one could have silenced the opposition by calling for a boycott. Back then the opposition was deep and broad and determined to be heard.

Eight years later the opposition is still there, and in some quarters it is deeply felt, but it was not determined to be heard. That is a reality that the commission noticed. Something has happened in the intervening time.

One thing that happened was the cause of marriage equality has advanced elsewhere in the nation, and it is not such a novel or threatening idea. Marriage is now available to gay and lesbian couples in Massachusetts (as well as in Canada and some European nations), and civil unions are a reality in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. In fact, New Hampshire passed a civil unions law last year without a court ruling compelling the legislature to act.

Further, Vermont has lived with civil unions for eight years and has learned two things from the experience. First, honoring homosexual relationships does not hurt heterosexual relationships. Rather than threatening the stability of the family, civil unions extend respect for families to gay and lesbian partners.

Second, civil unions, while furthering the stability of families, remain an unfulfilled promise of equality. The only reason that gay and lesbian couples are denied the full rights of marriage is because of their sexual orientation. The commission heard much testimony about the second-class status of civil unions for those couples who believe that the full rights of marriage are the only way to provide equal rights to all.

The commission did not make a recommendation to the Legislature, though many of its members have expressed sympathy with the idea of gay marriage. The commission took seriously its charge to report on what Vermonters were thinking, rather than pushing their own agenda.

Tom Little, chairman of the commission, was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when civil unions were adopted, and he learned then that the people's voice can be the most powerful voice of all. By preparing a report reflecting the lessons learned by the people of Vermont over the past eight years, he has demonstrated a new reality for all who wish to look: that marriage equality for gay and lesbian Vermonters is an idea whose time has come.

[jw]

MN: Rochester paper reverses discriminatory policy

Link: Twin Cities Daily Planet

 

Background on the Rochester, Minn., Post-Bulletin's recent announcement that it will now publish commitment announcements for same-sex couples.

Excerpt:

The Rochester Post-Bulletin has reversed a policy that required gay and lesbian couples to purchase an ad to announce a marriage or commitment ceremony — a service offered for free to couples who have the legal option to marry.

The Rochester Post-Bulletin came under fire in 2005 when its publisher, Jon Losness, told Rochester couple Nancy and Barbara Horvath-Zurn that they would have to purchase an ad if they wanted to announce their legal wedding in Canada. Losness said that the paper would deny same-sex announcements as long as same-sex couples had no legal recognition in Minnesota. He also said that the paper had no written rule about the policy — it was solely Losness’ decision.

At the time, Post-Bulletin blogger Jay Furst wrote the paper’s official stance on the issue: “Here’s our rationale: We publish notices for marriages legally recognized in Minnesota. This allows for clarity and consistency in our wedding notices at a time when there’s great disagreement and political controversy over same-sex marriage, and while marriage laws are evolving.”

That disagreement and political controversy appears to have faded three years later as the Post-Bulletin told readers Saturday that same-sex couples will be able to announce their commitment ceremonies in the same manner other couples announce their weddings.

[...]

[jw]

UT: Gay weddings flourish in a religious stronghold

Link: Times Online

Excerpt:

The day had finally dawned. After 12 years of being girlfriend and girlfriend, Holly Miller and P.R. Banks were getting married. Dressed in a cream trouser suit with a sparkly pink top, Holly, 44, looked radiant as she adjusted a silver tiara on her highlighted hair. P.R., who won't reveal her age, looked equally serene, wearing a traditional wedding gown with a matching tiara perched atop her elegant blonde bun.

"I take you, P.R., to be my beloved," Holly told P.R., looking into her eyes. In the front row, Holly's mum sat enthralled by the ceremony, held in the upstairs function room of a popular upscale restaurant; her father looked vaguely bored. On the right of the makeshift altar, two of the six ushers standing solemnly in shirtsleeves and ties were women.

This was no ordinary gay wedding, if any gay wedding could be construed as ordinary. It took place recently in my hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah, which doesn't have a reputation for being exceptionally progressive or tolerant.

[...]

R.'s wedding was more than just a public demonstration of their commitment. In September 2005, Salt Lake's then mayor, Rocky Anderson issued an Executive Order granting same-sex partners in the City proper the same health and other employment benefits available to heterosexual couples. Executive orders have the force of law based on existing statutory powers, and require no outside backing for them to be enforced.

"Fundamental principles of fairness and justice obligated me to grant equal benefits to same-sex domestic partners of employees," Anderson told me. "While my Executive Order granting equal benefits was unpopular in some quarters, even spurring lawsuits, it was the right thing to do."

One couple which has benefited from his laws is MaryEtta Chase, a former Mormon housewife with three grown daughters, and partner Shelle Marchant, whose own mum grew up in a fundamentalist polygamist household. Shelle drives heavy machinery for the City of Salt Lake, and their civil ceremony two years ago means MaryEtta enjoys the same medical benefits Shelle's colleagues' wives get. "It's all about love,"  says MaryEtta, stroking Shelle's hand at the reception as the presiding Reverend Bruce Barton of the Metropolitan Community Church, wearing an Indian headdress, danced to the Village People's YMCA with a handful of other guests.

A former Mormon missionary, Reverend Barton has been with his male partner for 30 years and has an eleven-year-old son. He didn't actually come out - to himself or others - until he was almost 30. "I thought I couldn't be gay as the only gays I knew of were flaming queens, and I wasn't," he says.

[...]

[jw]

CA: They do, even if the law says they can’t

Link: UCLA Daily Bruin

Excerpt:

Davidson Lloyd, left, and Tom Keegan exchanged vows in a ceremony organized by the Student Coalition for Marriage Equality and