Laguna Beach Gays Opt Less for Marriage

After 34 years together, Len Olds and Hugh Rouse have their routines: They spend mornings on their investments and volunteer work. They usually leave their Laguna Beach home, with its sweeping view of the Pacific, for lunch in town. Evening often brings a dinner party. In every way, the two gay retirees are a couple.

But the men have no plans to join the parade of gay couples exchanging wedding vows in San Francisco, where city officials have granted more than 3,000 same-sex marriage licenses in defiance of state law. They say a marriage certificate offers little benefit for them.

“This is a vital gay-rights issue,” said Olds, 60. “But it is a nonissue for me personally.”

Interviews with same-sex couples in Laguna Beach’s long-established and relatively isolated gay enclave suggest that many have no interest in marriage -- reflecting views of a sizable minority within the gay community who believe it is not necessary in order to make a commitment.

“If this had happened when we were younger, we probably would have jumped at the chance,” said Karl Huber, 70, who has been with his partner for more than 40 years. “Now it’s too late. Who wants to fool around with anything like this now?”

A national survey of gays and lesbians released this week found that legal recognition of same-sex marriage was the most important issue in the gay community -- more so than hate-crime legislation or increased funding for HIV and AIDS research, among others. The survey was conducted by Syracuse University and OpusComm Group Inc., a gay-owned public relations firm.

But now that marriage is possible -- at least, to the degree that marriage ceremonies in San Francisco are valid -- gay couples are finding they must decide whether it makes sense for them. Some don’t see the need -- at least not now. Among those are older, affluent, conservative couples who have found ways to enjoy the benefits of a long-term relationship that don’t require a marriage license.

It’s a demographic that defines Laguna Beach’s gay community. The city elected an openly gay mayor in the early 1980s and was one of the first in the state to offer employment benefits to same-sex partners. But soaring property values have left a core gay community that is wealthier, older and more conservative than others.

Gay advocacy in Laguna Beach is as low-key and refined as the city itself. Patrons support various advocacy and AIDS-prevention groups and the local Log Cabin Republicans. But for many who grew up during times of intolerance, the boat-rocking going on in San Francisco is better left to others.

In Laguna, life is good.

“They live in a little bit of a lavender bubble down there,” said Torie Osborn, former director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and a longtime activist.

“It doesn’t surprise me” that so few in Laguna Beach are embracing the marriage movement, added Glenda Russell, acting executive director of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies in Massachusetts. “Wealthy, traditional, older people do not tend to do things dramatically outside the norm” -- whether they’re gay or straight.

Older gays nationwide are likely to be more comfortable challenging the ban on same-sex unions through the courts than actively defying the law, as those in San Francisco are doing, Russell said. “When people are wealthy, they can buy themselves out -- or into -- certain kinds of situations.”

Of course, plenty of older gays and lesbians in San Francisco have decided to tie the knot. The very first couple to be married were Del Martin, 83, and Phyllis Lyon, 79, longtime gay-rights activists who’ve been together for 51 years.

And not all gay couples in Laguna Beach are waiting for the legal dust to settle on the marriage question before they jump in. Many younger members of the community, though they also enjoy the benefits of wealth, see the political showdown over gay marriage as a historical event in which they want to be players.

Among those who feel this way are Melina Friedman and Holland Carney. Together for 17 years, the two are about to become parents: Friedman, 36, is seven months pregnant through artificial insemination. Now, the two plan to be married in San Francisco.

“This is a historic moment and an amazing opportunity,” Carney said. “It is critical for us to celebrate that and contribute our energy. This is our ‘Rosa Parks’ moment when we are standing up in the bus and pushing forward.”

Still, until the courts rule on San Francisco’s same-sex marriages, many Laguna Beach couples are relying on the security afforded to them by costly legal documents and the state’s domestic-partnership laws, which guarantee some of the same rights afforded by marriage.

Dick Anderson, 76, and Alex Wentzel, 77, met at a Valentine’s Day party in 1960 and have been together ever since. Their lives are intertwined. They owned an interior design company together, bought a home and entered into trusts together, even finish each other’s sentences.

“If we were in our 30s or 40s, we would have gone to San Francisco to get married,” Wentzel said. “At our age, though, big deal. If it becomes legal, then we’ll do it. But until then, they’re just spinning their wheels.”

Their relationship was formed at a time of little tolerance for open homosexuality. “You did not talk about it, even with your friends or your family,” Wentzel said.

They are discreet men who don’t draw attention to themselves. And that plays a big role in how they view the prospect of marriage.

“This idea of standing in line is too much,” Anderson said. “I see how enthusiastic these people are and I applaud them, but we do not need to do that.”

Len Olds and Hugh Rouse don’t wear rings and have never felt the need to sanctify their three decades together with a ceremony. But, like other couples here, they see no difference between their commitment to each other and that of a husband and wife.

They jointly own their newly renovated 3,400-square-foot Tuscan-villa-style home, which is filled with art and memories collected through the years. Over their 1916 Steinway grand piano hangs the wooden African masks they brought back from South Africa. An invitation for their 30th anniversary gala in 2000 welcomed guests to help celebrate their years of “domestic bliss.”

“My only need is that I live my life with the person I love,” Olds said. “Saying ‘I love you’ on a daily basis suffices for me.”

All the same, the pair have had to deal with federal laws that deny them many rights afforded to the legally married. Former schoolteachers who built a joint fortune through investment, they say they’ve paid about $30,000 to lawyers to ensure that when one dies, the other will not pay inheritance taxes -- a right automatically granted to married couples.

For most gay couples in Laguna Beach, this is the price of equality -- not the cost of plane tickets to San Francisco.

“You really have to think about different things when you’re older and in a higher socioeconomic bracket,” said Diane Goodman, an Encino lawyer who represents several gay couples on family issues. “You cannot afford to be as impulsive as when you’re in your 20s.”

Goodman has advised her gay clients not to get married until the courts take a stand on same-sex marriage. Such a step, she said, could nullify a couple’s domestic partnership registration and leave them in legal limbo. Some 25,000 couples have registered with the state as domestic partners.

“I do not feel strongly about the [right to marry],” said Wayne Peterson, 64, a former mayor of Laguna Beach who has been with his partner for 31 years. “I do not feel like I have to shout from a rooftop right now. I will not get married to make a statement.”