IGF CultureWatch

First published August 25, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.

When I visited Toronto recently with friends we did all the usual things: marveled at Lake Ontario, bought soap at Lush, gazed up at the CN Tower.

And checked out places to get married.

My straight friends were giddy about the idea. They loved being on a quest. They listed possible wedding spots: churches, gardens, lakefront parks, a one-room school house where guests sit at children's desks. Toronto seems to be a paradise for those about to be wed.

My friends drove me by this location or that one. I snapped grainy pictures on my cell phone to show the girlfriend later.

The girlfriend doesn't really know we're getting married. Well, she kind of does. We've talked about it. We've talked vaguely about how a year from September might be good. But even though we've known each other for four years, we haven't really been girlfriends that long, so a year might be pressing it.

But gays and lesbians can get married in Toronto. And unlike in Massachusetts a couple doesn't need to be residents there. So the idea of "Oh, we could get married in Toronto" quickly changed into, "I'm getting married in Toronto!"

Which meant I announced my engagement to everyone I met. And everyone I met seemed just as giddy as the friends I was traveling with.

"Ooooh," said Amy and Michael, the friends of the friends I had gone to visit. I had never met them before but the couple was instantly smitten by the idea of a wedding. "How about the Carlu? There's a round Art Deco room with a fountain in the center."

The fountain sold me. I ignored the dollar-a-minute rate my cell phone company charges to call across the border and rang my girl.

"Hey," I said casually. "How about the Carlu for our wedding? I'm e-mailing you the link."

There was a pause. "I like it," she said. "It's perfect. But, um, I don't quite remember setting a date..."

Oh yeah. That.

But there's something about being somewhere where lesbian weddings are possible that makes one leap over the interim steps. Like living in the same city. Or actually agreeing to be married.

Nevertheless, I soldiered on.

When the toddler with us reached toward sparkly dresses in a boutique window on Queen's Street, we wandered in. The designer's flirty, elegant, floor-length shifts seemed like they'd be ideal for - oh, I don't know - wedding dresses. I almost started jumping up and down.

I tried on a simple gold sheath with a deep red overdress embroidered in gold. Wearing it, I felt like a chic medieval princess. All I needed was a tiara.

"That's lovely on you," the saleswoman cooed.

"I'm thinking about it for my wedding," I said. "But it needs alterations. Do you have a store in Chicago?"

"No, this is it. But Chicago's not that far."

I tossed my head blithely. "Oh, I'm getting married in Toronto anyway. So maybe it wouldn't be a big deal."

She nodded, arranging the bottom of the deep red fabric so that it swirled around my ankles like a train. "Why Toronto?"

"Because I'm a lesbian," I said. "And we can here."

She nodded as if to say, "That makes sense." There was no surprise on her face at all.

I thought back to how Amy and Michael hadn't registered surprise, either, when they found out that I was a lesbian and thus thinking about Toronto as a place to get married. Mostly they were enthusiastic about the idea of a wedding.

And that's when I realized something about weddings that I hadn't quite understood before.

Getting married is not just an entrance to legal equality and government benefits. And it's not just a public witnessing of love and commitment.

Getting married is a cultural rite of passage that validates membership in society - it welcomes you into the club of child-rearing adults, whether or not that's your intention.

When a couple marries, they validate every other marriage that came before, because they are implicitly saying that this is an institution worth perpetuating. And their own new marriage reminds others who married long ago about the hope and joy undergirding their wedding day and about the promises they made to each other.

The enlightened people I met in Toronto understand that. It is less important to them that I'm a lesbian than that I am joining their club by getting married. They can relate to the experience of planning a wedding - or wanting to plan a wedding - whether or not they can relate to my lesbianism. It gives us something to talk about that we can all understand and appreciate. It makes us and them the same.

This is why the argument that gay marriage destroys straight marriage is completely idiotic. Because the opposite is true. Merely by marrying we strengthen marriage. We validate the institution at the same time it validates us.

I didn't buy the dress I saw that day in Toronto, but I did grab a business card and snap a picture. Two steps out of the store, I called my girl.

"I found a wedding dress," I said. "It's perfect."

She laughed. "You know, somehow just you talking about all this wedding stuff gets me excited about it. Maybe we should set a date."

I smiled. "Have I mentioned that the Carlu has a fountain?"

First published on August 19, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.

Aug. 12, 2004, was a blockbuster gay news day. To recap briefly: In the morning the California Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom lacked authority to issue marriage licenses to 4,000 same-sex couples this past spring.

In the afternoon New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey (D) announced "I am a gay American," said he had had an extramarital affair with a man which left him "vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure," and so planned to resign in three months.

In the evening President George W. Bush appeared on "Larry King" and said it would be "great" if states want to provide legal recognition to same-sex couples. "That's up to states," Bush said. "If they want to provide legal protections for gays, that's great. That's fine."

Each of these deserves comment, but first notice the "meta-news" - the news about the news. In the 1970s there was little gay news. In the 1980s the only gay news was AIDS. But now we who wished for gay visibility are getting our wish in spades. Even the absence of gay issues at the Democratic convention was news. And it is not going to let up for decades.

Even though most of us demand the right to marry, it is hard to disagree with the California Supreme Court. Local officials cannot defy state policy. They can direct enforcement away from some laws (marijuana, commercial sex), but they cannot declare legal something that is illegal, and they lack authority to grant state entitlements.

They can justifiably break the law in token fashion to publicize an issue, as Newsom did, and as a deliberate act of civil disobedience to test the law, as Newsom did while filing suit against California's gay marriage ban. But they cannot on their own change state law.

Gratifyingly, the California court explicitly stated that its ruling did not touch the constitutionality of the California gay marriage ban. That case will not be decided for at least a year or two.

But the court's separate 5-2 vote to nullify Newsom's marriages suggests that at least two justices may already believe the state's ban on gay marriage may be unconstitutional so gay marriage will have vigorous representation in court deliberations. Some of the other five justices may well agree on the issue though not on Newsom's remedy. We need only two more for a majority.

McGreevey's coming out in the context of an extramarital affair and allegations of extortion threats or a sexual harassment suit does not send much of a message about gay pride, or perhaps pride only for married closet queens who give their partners government jobs for which they have no qualifications.

Still, it is perhaps a slight plus for people to know that there are gay government officials, and McGreevey is, at the moment, the highest ranking openly gay official. And to his credit his earlier closetedness did not lead him to don the breastplate of righteousness by being anti-gay. He did sign New Jersey's civil unions legislation.

The charges by partner Golan Cipel seem strained if not preposterous. Cipel reportedly claims that he was coerced, that McGreevey "forcibly performed oral sex on Mr. Cipel without his consent." How awful that must have been for him! But it is difficult - with a straight face - to imagine the scenario by which this would happen. And there were witnesses supposedly?

But McGreevey's integrity does not come off well either. He denied his sexual orientation throughout his career, marrying one woman he said he loved but who apparently divorced him - one wonders why - then marrying a second who he said loved him but does not say he loved. The second marriage was then a contrivance?

Bush's statement on CNN's "Larry King" show that it is fine that states can provide "legal protections for gays" should have stunned people. Had the media not already overdosed on gays that day, Bush's comment would have been major news. It is major news: The social conservative president thinks it is "great" that states are free to offer legal protections to gays. Or "great" for gays if they do. Or something.

Across America, religious right jaws dropped like William "Refrigerator" Perry on a bungee cord. No doubt the Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons gritted their teeth and muttered, "I guess he has to say stuff like that to placate those 'moderates' he needs to win."

Remember that the goal of the religious right is to keep gays invisible to the law. But granting partner benefits would require a state registry of gay couples and that would mean state recognition of gays as gays and gay partnerships as a legitimate entity.

And Bush must know that allowing state legislatures to extend partner benefits would collide with a Federal Marriage Amendment that prohibits any state supreme court from reading its own constitution so as to permit the granting of any "incidents of marriage" to gay couples. Bush is playing a risky game, trusting that neither moderates nor conservatives will see the contradiction and will believe whatever they hope.

If all goes according to plan, the Republican Party will hold a love fest of a national convention in New York next month, just as their Democratic rivals did in July. But not if a small group of socially progressive Republicans stand in their way.

The Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization of gay GOP members, has announced its intention, along with Republicans for Choice and the Republican Youth Majority, to call on the national Republican Party to adopt a "Unity Plank" in its 2004 platform. The plank does not call on the party to endorse gay marriage, gays in the military, government-funded contraception, the Harvey Milk School, partial-birth abortion, or any other controversial policy proposal. The plank, in its totality, reads simply:

"We recognize and respect that Republicans of good faith may not agree with all the planks in the party's platform. This is particularly the case with regard to those planks dealing with abortion, family planning, and gay and lesbian issues. The Republican Party welcomes all people on all sides of these complex issues and encourages their active participation as we work together on those issues upon which we agree."

If the Republicans have any sense, they will accept this innocent proposal from these unfairly marginalized members of their own party. After all, the headline speakers at the convention are Governor Schwarzenegger of California, Governor Pataki of New York, and Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor - all of whom support gay rights. But don't hold your breath.

Considering what they have had to endure, gay Republicans could easily be considered the most loyal members of the GOP. For when it comes to the issues that directly affect gays the Republican Party has been nothing but hostile. The party's leaders have continually opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would make it illegal under federal law to fire someone simply because that person is gay. Currently, this practice is legal in 36 states. Congressional Republicans have consistently opposed allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces, at a time when the most qualified individuals are needed to defend the country. And the Republican Party, led by Mr. Bush, has sought to write discrimination into the Constitution by means of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Despite all this, the Log Cabin Republicans are only requesting that a straightforward, three-sentence plank be included in the party's 2004 platform that would make gay Republicans feel welcome within the party whose candidates they vote for, whose ideals they believe in, and whose treasury they help fund.

Is it too much to ask? Apparently so, because leaders of the Log Cabin Republicans have yet even to receive credentials to attend the convention.

Social issues are divisive, and the party's hard-line stance against gays is not only failing to win over voters - only 4 percent of whom say gay marriage is a decisive issue for them - but it will become a political liability down the road as homophobic public policies become increasingly anachronistic with young people. The polls bear this contention out, and Karl Rove would do well to pay attention. In 2000, Mr. Bush nearly split the 18-to-29-year-old vote with Mr. Gore. But in a recently released Washington Post-ABC News poll, Mr. Kerry now leads the president among that same demographic by a 2-to-1 margin. While the war and the economy are paramount in creating this shift, the one glaring issue that separates this age group from older voters - who are evenly split in the presidential race - is gays.

If the Republican Party wishes to have a future, it must come to grips with the fact that its stances on issues related to homosexuality, while perhaps not strategically risky right now, will prove disastrous in the future if they do not evolve. Voters under 30 are "gay friendly." Half of us support gay marriage and a sizeable majority of us support full legal rights via civil unions. We can claim more openly gay friends, relatives, and coworkers than any other generation of Americans. We view any remark that hints of anti-gay animus with the same mix of disdain and ironic bemusement as we do retrograde comments endorsing racial supremacy.

Young people take pride in our acceptance of gay people and are confident that despite the bitter debate homosexuality is causing in our country now, most Americans will share our point of view within the next 20 years. If Republicans have any idea what is good for them as a party, they will get hip with the times.

The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (known as “ENDA”)
is dead, a victim of Republican opposition, Democratic
indifference, and now the foolishness of the country’s richest and
most prominent gay civil rights organization.

Abandoning common sense, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
announced in early August that it will no longer support federal
legal protection for millions of gay workers unless the tiny number
of transgendered workers get that protection at the same time. The
decision is a slap in the face to gay Americans, who generously
fund HRC, and who will now have to wait even longer for protection
from employment discrimination.

ENDA was first introduced in Congress in 1994. From the
beginning, it has been a carefully calculated compromise between
the need for broad protection from discrimination and the practical
realities of a political world just now getting used to the subject
of homosexuality. From the beginning, it banned only employment
discrimination, not discrimination in housing, education, or public
accommodations. From the beginning, it applied only to relatively
large employers. It exempted religious employers. It banned
quotas.

And from the beginning, ENDA protected workers only from
anti-gay discrimination, not from discrimination for a host of
other reasons, like “gender identity and expression,” which would
include transgendered people.

Until this month, HRC opposed adding gender identity to ENDA. In
the judgment of Capitol Hill vote-counters, including uber-liberals
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), a
transgender-inclusive ENDA could not pass Congress. Adding
transgender protection would, in their judgment, scare off
Republican congressional sponsors already in hot water for
supporting protection for gays. That, in turn, would scare off some
moderate Democrats.

Without the support of at least a few Republicans and
moderate-to-conservative Democrats, ENDA could never pass