Two brides and two grooms get hitched at City Hall in San Francisco. More “I do’s” are anticipated in May in Massachusetts, where judges are calling anything less than legal marriage for gays and lesbians “separate and unequal.”
In a matter of weeks, the gay marriage issue has advanced beyond the wildest dreams of gay people. As opponents pledge to amend constitutions and pass laws to block it and the more society confronts this politically charged, religiously sensitized sensitive issue, the closer gay marriage moves toward reality.
Just last week, political leaders from around the world, from Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley to the 81-year-old monarch of Cambodia, have publicly backed gay marriage.
Naturally, many gays are delighted. The debate allows marriage to enter their realm of possibility. It gives them an opportunity to educate the public on their beliefs.
Couples that have been together for as long as 46 years, like Bill Franco and Lee Schrank of Schaumburg, worry about not being able to dictate medical treatments and carry out burial wishes on each other’s behalf. If one of them dies, the other will be forced to sell his home because of the harsh tax penalty that would be assessed because they aren’t wed.
“Should he die, I cannot even get a death certificate,” Schrank said.Though gay adoptions are gaining in number, lesbian mothers and gay fathers still risk losing custody of their children in messy divorce battles the way Lucy Shumpert of Chicago did when she divorced.
“I used to beg, please, let me see them,” said Shumpert, of Chicago. “There were days when Hurdie [her partner] just had to hold me, because it was so difficult.”
Without the right to marry, Rose D., 49, of Wisconsin and Karen R., 37, a native of Jamaica here on a temporary visa, worry that immigration laws will force Karen to return home, a place where openly gay people risk physical harm, even death.
“This is the best relationship I’ve ever had,” Rose D., who asked that their identities be withheld, said tearfully at a recent marriage-equality reception sponsored by the Midwest office of Lambda Legal, a gay civil rights group, at a Chicago art gallery.
“The government can break us up,” she said.
Indeed, in his State of the Union address, President Bush vowed to protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Politicians are choosing their words carefully on the subject and heeding warnings from conservative groups that the issue could cost them elections and sabotage their careers.
But for gay couples, the politicization of the marriage issue ignores the fact that, gay or straight, people want to get married for the same reasons.
“It’s not about politics. My motivation is love,” Rose D. said. “Why our country doesn’t want to recognize love is mind-boggling to me with all the strife, war … and terrorism.”
Some lawmakers are vowing to do everything in their power to protect the sanctity of marriage, including support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being for heterosexuals.
But in the present climate, it is hard to imagine that commitment ceremonies and domestic partner registries will ever again quench the longing of gays and lesbians for the real thing.
Today there is growing optimism in the gay community that the current furor over gay marriage has marked the beginning of the end of pseudo-marriage and what they see as second-class citizenship.
Evette Cardona, 41, of Chicago, who has been in a committed relationship for eight years with Mona Noriega, says, “It is no longer a matter of `if’ but `when.'”
Many look to history as evidence of that. In the past, when issues of equality have reached critical mass–for instance, protests against America’s separate-but-equal racial policies in the 1960s–that is when change has occurred.
“We are the new minority,” said Michael Lamb, publisher of Echelon, a new magazine aimed at gay professionals. “We’re not as visible as the African-American community, but we are on a similar route in terms of civil rights.”
Some gay rights advocates predict that people one day will look back and realize that prohibiting gay marriage–and using religious doctrine to support that–was as grossly absurd as denying women and minorities the right to vote.
“Society will grow up, like they did to accept interracial marriage and dating,” said Walter Schubert, chief executive officer of the Gay Financial Network, which seeks to advance gays in the business world. “The country will get over it.”
But those kinds of changes are never pretty.
Already, 38 states, including Illinois and California, have defense-of-marriage laws that define marriage as between a man and a woman. Opponents say that gay marriages occurring in San Francisco are not legal. Court battles are likely to ensue as gay couples fight to have their unions recognized.
There is also the separate classification of civil unions–such as those in Vermont–which may be adopted by more states.
Bush, meanwhile, vowed to commit millions of federal dollars to programs supporting the institution of marriage. A week later, Ohio lawmakers passed a law banning gay marriage and the rights and benefits that go with it.
That helped mobilize gay marriage supporters. On Feb. 12, National Freedom to Marry Day in the gay community, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is straight, opened the matrimonial gates in that city to anyone who wanted to pass through them.
To a lot of people, the gay marriage issue appears to have risen out of nowhere, but marriage has always resonated within the gay community, advocates say.
At Lambda Legal’s third annual pre-Valentine’s Day marriage-equality reception in Chicago, there were four wedding cakes, two bouquet tosses and party favors tied with purple ribbons sitting in a basket at the door. Latinas swayed to salsa music and couples representing every race and ethnic group danced and held each other.
And most agreed that getting the issue out in the open is a positive step.
“Discussions about marriage get contentious sometimes but create opportunities for gays and lesbians to talk about their families and to help their non-gay co-workers and neighbors understand why a lack of protection is harmful to them,” said Jennifer Pizer, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal in Los Angeles.
“The more discussion there is and visibility there is for gay people, the better for all the legal injustices that we’ve experienced. As people know us better, there’s less discomfort,” Pizer said.
Discomfort is precisely why some church groups and people like Dick Royal, 82, of Hammond have entered the gay fray.
Royal is straight. He’s been married for 36 years. His two children are straight. But he said he was shocked and appalled by the treatment of gays and lesbians at a Methodist church conference in 1996.
“They were discussing the status of gays in the church but wouldn’t let them talk,” Royal said. “I’ve been active in peace and social justice issues for 50 years. It upset me.”
Royal and his wife, Barbara, founded a northwestern Indiana chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. About 35 people regularly attend meetings at a Hammond church, though the church is not an official sponsor.
Royal attended the Lambda Legal reception. He said he believes that the struggle for full marriage rights for gay couples will continue and should until equality is achieved.
“Anything else is less than the full loaf,” he said.
