Nothing but ‘I Do’ Will Do Now for Many Gays
Lowell Selvin and Gib Winebar have spent the last 25 years as a couple. Every January, the two men celebrate the night they met. Still, until last month, they never found themselves yearning to be married.
“We thought, do we really need the piece of paper?” recalled Selvin, now the 44-year-old chairman and chief executive of PlanetOut Partners. “Aren’t we already way past married after 25 years?”
Imagine their surprise, then, when last month’s same-sex wedding boom happened and they found themselves standing in line for two days, desperate to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live.
Until that moment, they say, they had viewed marriage mainly as a sort of package of legal protections, severing it from its deeper power as a communal rite of passage.
“It’s difficult to describe,” Selvin said. “Before, what I wanted was the thousand and forty-something rights” that the law confers upon married couples.
“But when all of a sudden it was a reality in our own backyard, something crystallized in my thinking,” he added. “Marriage had been so far away and distant, it hadn’t even been on our radar. Now anything less feels like second-class citizenship.”
The same-sex wedding boom that, for 29 days, ignited this city and the nation may leave no one legally married by the time it works its way through the courts. But for at least one swath of society, it has permanently changed expectations.
Goals that once seemed sufficient -- health benefits for domestic partners, say, or spousal rights in child-custody matters -- now seem like tepid half-measures to many gay people. Meanwhile, from its tax deductions to its merest terms -- “my wife,” “my husband” -- marriage has become the new line between the haves and have-nots.
It’s an evolution that social conservatives had warned of almost from the first moments the licenses were issued, giving, in the view of state Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale), for example, “false hope” to gay men and lesbians.
But it’s also a change that, on a national scale, may not bode well for the long-term acceptance of compromise solutions, such as civil unions, which are legal in Vermont and have been proposed as an alternative to the marriages that are expected to begin as soon as May 17 in Massachusetts.
“Before all this, I probably would have entered into a civil union -- in fact, I did enter into a domestic partnership, because it was available and better than nothing,” said James Krause, 53, a retiree who lives near New Paltz, N.Y. Krause and his partner of 15 years, Brendan Daly, 54, married during that town’s brief flurry of same-sex weddings.
“But ‘available’? ‘Better than nothing’? How can you ask someone to settle for that?” Krause asked. “That’s like telling Rosa Parks, ‘Well, OK, you can move to the middle of the bus.’ ”
Homosexual marriage has been debated for more than a decade around the nation, but until very recently, the question had been hypothetical.
In Vermont, a 1999 court decision forcing the state to extend the constitutional benefits and protections of civil marriage to same-sex couples resulted in parallel “civil unions.” Since then, same-sex couples have happily flocked there to formalize their partnerships.
But civil union rights stop at the Vermont state line, and when the highest court in Massachusetts ruled last year that its constitution outlawed separate-but-equal forms of marriage, the issue reached a critical mass.
On Feb. 12 -- while Massachusetts legislators struggled to satisfy not only their split electorate and their constitution, but also a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the law couldn’t single out homosexuals for disapproval -- the new mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, announced that California’s Constitution, too, forbade separate-but-equal status.
As Newsom abruptly began issuing same-sex marriage licenses, a handful of other municipalities -- New Paltz; Asbury Park, N.J.; Portland, Ore. -- followed. The thousands of ensuing ceremonies have reframed the debate.
“The mayor of San Francisco giving the licenses really upped the ante,” said San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, adding that the symbolism attached to marriage was turning out to be far more profound than anticipated for many gay people. In the past, he and others noted, even same-sex couples often tended to prefer the less-loaded and more egalitarian notion of civil unions to heterosexual society’s imperfect institution.
Now that’s changing.
“I’m originally from Massachusetts, and on May 17 we’re going to go up there and get married, and then we’re going to bring that marriage certificate home with us and go to court if our state doesn’t recognize us,” vowed Elizabeth “Bitsy” Recupero, the town physician in the mile-long hamlet of Lambertville, N.J.
Recupero, 39, and Judith Levinson, a 53-year-old art teacher, have a civil union but now view it as insufficient.
“I didn’t start out feeling this way, but that piece of paper, it’s just so important, I can’t even put it into words,” Recupero said. “It’s so important to have society support you. It’s about family values. It’s about society saying you’re recognized as a couple.”
“I had always felt married, but it was a kind of a secret marriage,” agreed Willow Williams, 44, who celebrated her 25th anniversary with her partner, Bonnie Aspen, 51, by driving from their home in Spokane, Wash., to Portland to marry last week.
Former schoolteachers who now lead a self-development workshop, the women had registered in the past as domestic partners.
But “it’s a whole different feeling when you stand up and make your promise,” Aspen said, “and you’re also promising all the people in your community and your extended family.”
Such sentiments have some in the commitment industry speculating that nothing but full marriage will work for gays and lesbians, long term.
“Civil unions just aren’t going to cut it anymore,” said Massachusetts wedding planner Julie Dunagan, who was hustling last week to meet a 30% jump in bookings from the same-sex marriage developments in her state. “There’s a sense of discrimination to them now. We have people telling us they’ve been waiting all their lives to do this.”
In neighborhoods and workplaces, gay people say “real marriage” has already become a cultural divider.
“Now some of us have marriage certificates in the office and others don’t, and it’s something you notice,” said Bryce Eberhart, director of corporate communications at Selvin’s Gay.com and PlanetOut.com websites.
“And we’ve been talking about how the married people will fill out their tax forms next year. Our dental insurance provider allows married couples to be covered right away, but makes domestic partners wait six months. Most Americans will say they don’t believe in gay marriage, but when you ask whether the person to whom I’ve been committed for five years shouldn’t get equal dental coverage,” they’ll say they do support those kinds of benefits, Eberhart said.
“There are all these tangible ways in which the rubber is suddenly being put to the road.”
Not that some couples who want formal commitments aren’t making do for now with what they view as the most stable options.
“In the last two weeks, we’ve booked a good 15 to 18 more civil unions than usual, and it shocks me,” said Ken Richardson, owner of the Black Bear Inn, a resort near Burlington, Vt.
In the three years since Vermont became the first state to legalize same-sex civil unions, Richardson -- who is both the owner of the inn and a justice of the peace, thus allowing him to offer one-stop wedding and honeymoon accommodations -- has conducted more than 350 ceremonies, more than anyone else in the state.
“I’d have thought people here would hold off until May,” when a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect in Massachusetts, he said. “But that hasn’t been the case.... I think a sleeping giant has been awakened, and people are thinking about the whole issue more now.”
Public opinion has reflected a growing acceptance on gay-rights issues, though opposition to same-sex marriage has remained the majority view. Many Americans believe, and have long believed, that husband-and-husband or wife-and-wife unions are unnatural and sacrilegious.
Meanwhile, amid calls by President Bush and others for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, the compromise of civil unions that would offer some of the same rights on a state-by-state basis has steadily gained favor.
In a Gallup poll last month, the nationwide approval rate for civil unions crossed the halfway mark for the first time, to 54%. But even in strongholds of gay rights, such as San Francisco, many gay men and lesbians have expressed mixed feelings about marriage, regarding it as something they have been taught to value by the same society that has devalued their identity.
“I’m in a committed relationship, and we bounced around the idea of getting married, but we didn’t -- it wasn’t that important to us to make a political statement,” said John Spear, who manages a small hotel near the Castro district. That said, he added, the political has become personal for many of his neighbors, in a way that seems to be changing the public equation almost daily.
“There’s a sense in the community now that whatever rights are extended to gay and lesbian couples, real marriage is the ultimate goal,” Spear said.
Perhaps most galvanizing, he and others said, is the way in which San Francisco’s “Winter of Love” has illuminated all the small rewards that society confers on heterosexual vows.
“We’ve been married three weeks,” said David Paisley, 40, a production manager in San Francisco who wed his domestic partner, David Marshall. “And, no, it’s not the same. It has reconnected our relationship in ways I wasn’t expecting, and to have a whole city reinforce it was amazing. I used to refer to Dave as my partner or boyfriend. Now I refer to him as my husband, and when I say it, I smile.”
For Selvin, the change in consciousness has been equally powerful and subtle.
“Twelve or 13 years ago,” he said, “Gib had cancer, and we had to do all kinds of extra agreements and speak to the doctor to make sure I would have access to him.”
In most hospitals, Selvin noted, such privileges are accorded to spouses automatically.
“But it wasn’t until Gavin Newsom said gay people could be married, and then the president came out and said no, we don’t deserve to, that my perspective really changed completely,” he said. “Now I feel those kinds of equal rights should be a byproduct of what my government should give me for all I give to it, every day.”
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Domestic partner provisions
Existing and pending domestic partner provisions in California and civil unions in Vermont are the closest approximations in the U.S. to marriage rights for gay people. They, however, do not fully match the rights of heterosexual married couples. Some examples:
Right to file joint income taxes
California Domestic Partners: No
Vermont Civil Union: Yes (state tax only)
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Community property
California Domestic Partners: Yes (after Jan. 1, 2005)
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Presumption of parenthood of a child born during partnership
California Domestic Partners: Yes (after Jan. 1, 2005)
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Right to use paid leave or sick leave to care for a seriously ill partner
California Domestic Partners: Yes
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Right to hospital visitation and to make medical decisions for a partner
California Domestic Partners: Yes
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Custody provisions and child support obligations
California Domestic Partners: Yes (after Jan. 1, 2005)
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Social Security and federal pension inheritance rights
California Domestic Partners: No
Vermont Civil Union: No
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Right to sponsor a foreign-born partner to become a U.S. citizen
California Domestic Partners: No
Vermont Civil Union: No
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Right to inherit if partner dies without a will
California Domestic Partners: Yes
Vermont Civil Union: Yes
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Rights recognized in other states
California Domestic Partners: No
Vermont Civil Union: No
Traditional Marriage: Yes
*
Sources: California Family Code; California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003 (AB 205); Equality California; Human Rights Campaign; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.