Even After Proposition 8, the Fight -- and the Party -- Must Go On

Last month, my fiancé and I got married in the state of Connecticut. Even though we are a same-sex couple, the day was mostly extraordinary in its ordinariness: my fiancé, Andrew Frist, and I met up with our families in the town of Salisbury, Connecticut, having filed our marriage license at the town hall the day before. After taking the requisite pictures on the porch of the inn where we were staying, the nine of us drove to the next town, to the campus of the boarding school I had attended. After the reading of a few poems by our siblings and reciting our vows with the school's lake in the background, we were pronounced married by a justice of the peace, and that was that.

What was unusual about the situation was that because I am from California, Drew is from Indiana, and we both live in New York -- all states that do not permit same-sex marriage -- we were forced, like refugees, to go to Connecticut to file our marriage license. We had gotten engaged nearly a year earlier, on May 1, 2008, in Paris. Two weeks later, the ruling on same-sex marriage was announced in California. We set about planning a celebration in northern California for fall 2009, a location that was predicated on my family living there and that gay marriage would be legal.

Or so we hoped. On November 4, those hopes were crushed by Proposition 8, and we had to make other plans. We still wanted to have a ceremonial wedding, a larger event, so that we could celebrate with family and friends. We thought that by the fall of 2009, our union might be legal again in California. But we were prepared for the worst, and so, as a backup, we planned our simple Connecticut wedding.

What was also unusual about our union was the week leading up to it. Earlier in the year, we had connected with the Courage Campaign, a Los Angeles-based group that, among its many activities, hosts training camps to help grassroots activists educate the public about marriage equality. The Courage Campaign, modeling itself on the Obama Campaign, had been enormously successful with its camps in Los Angeles and Fresno, and it needed funding for a camp in the San Francisco Bay Area. Because my family lives in San Francisco and believes firmly in equal rights, I was able to organize a $25,000 matching grant.

When the Campaign announced the challenge, it had ambitions of making the match, perhaps exceeding it by a little bit. Within three hours of the initial email blast, they had already surpassed the match, reaching nearly $75,000.

On the following Tuesday, a follow-up email went out from Drew and me, asking Courage Campaign members to step up to the challenge of raising $100,000, enough to fund two training camps. What was unique about the appeal was that it featured our own story, complete with a picture of the two of us. When contrasted with the absurd advertisements that had run recently from groups like the "National Organization for Marriage," featuring actors spouting off lies about the non-existent relationships between gay marriage and the civil rights of doctors, educators, and the clergy, our appeal was simple and direct.

Most importantly, it was personal.

What I realized during the whole process was how much we all needed to tell our own stories and not resort to abstract rhetoric. We told our story, and the money is still coming in -- to date, the appeal has raised more than $150,000.

All that happened last month. Now, this week, on Tuesday, our rights were taken away again in California, this time by the California Supreme Court, which voted to uphold Proposition 8. Until 2010, at the very earliest. Until a ballot measure brings back same-sex marriage to my home state.

As I heard the news on the radio, I wanted to cancel the celebration we are planning for the fall in Sonoma, California. Sure, we already have our marriage license, but why celebrate that in a state that won't grant us one of its own? I was embarrassed for California -- particularly considering the recent developments in other states -- and I wondered, why should its economy receive our dollars when it can't make our union legal? I wanted to call off the caterer, the invitations, the flowers, the band, the tent rental. What would any of it mean, after all?

I realized, though, that no battle was ever won by cowering in a corner, by dismissing the idea that we deserved a wedding celebration as jubilant as that of any heterosexual couple. As an older and wiser friend said to me recently: "Don't feel guilty that you're having a big wedding. You guys have to do it bigger and better. You have to show all those people that a gay wedding is just as important as a straight one -- maybe even more so."

We're not having a big wedding in California to show anyone anything. We're doing it for ourselves, for our families, and for our friends. We're doing it so that someday, we will have beautiful pictures to show and memories to share with our kids.

But we are also doing it because we are saying, California, we trust you'll make this right. I believe, if we keep working at it, that it will happen in the fall of 2010. Just one year after our own not-legal California wedding.

I also know from our experience in Connecticut that same-sex marriage may simply take some getting used to. On that Friday morning, before we went to the town hall to file our marriage license, we were served breakfast at the inn by an older waitress, a woman with hardened features who fit a classic New England archetype. When she asked us what we were doing in town, I motioned to Drew, explaining that we would be getting married the following day.

Her face went blank, and she nodded slightly, as if the mere notion of this was something she would need to think about further.

The next morning, the day of our ceremony, she served us again. By then, we had struck up a rapport, though we hadn't spoken any more about our impending nuptials. She didn't seem like the kind of person who knew any gay people or who believed in same-sex marriage -- or at the very least, she hadn't given it much thought. What she did have, however, was common sense and decency.

When we signed our check, she said goodbye to us with a simple farewell, a note of grace that I believe the rest of America would do well to follow the next time they are at the polls: "Have a beautiful day today," she said. "I wish you both all the happiness in the world."

Comments

[whitspur]

Mr. Dolby --

Congrats on the marriage, and the moral courage to stand up for what you believe in.

I too believe you should go ahead and have that celebration in CA -- but you may consider limiting your purchases to businesses that support gay marriage, or in some cases, even ordering some of your materials from out-of-state businesses as a form of protest. Then the ceremony can reflect your pride and hope while also rewarding those who aren't supporting these terrible, discriminatory laws.

[aredant]

Disappointed - I thought I was going to read something from my favorite new wave artist.
That and the fact that Aliens just ate my Buick

[jackwaddington]

I contend the battle for gay Marriage was lost because we framed it wrongly. The word 'Marriage' is but a word with several connotations; like we can marry a Nut and a Bolt. That some ancients who were convince the earth was flat, decided who should and who should not indulge in sexual intercourse. We've gotten past that one for the most part. These very same ancients even limited hetero's having sexual intercourse to a sub group. If we were now to create a legal framework for the meaning of 'Marriage' (without preventing Nuts and Bolts from their union) then this whole debate would be mute.

[Janskats]

You forgot to mention that marriage back then was strictly about money and power. Peasants didn't usually even bother..just shacked up. It was only the horny old geezers with big estates who worried about selling of their daughters to the highest bidder, in exhange for more land or a title..but mostly, power. Ain't tradition grand?

[viragovenus]

Tom, you've hit on the most important thing of all; this fight will not be won by legal, religious, or any other argument. It will be won one heart and mind at a time, as more and more LGB people have the courage to come out and make human, emotional connections with others, and those others have the courage to see that what is in front of them are human beings, just like them, who have the right to love, dignity, protection, and celebration just like everyone else. I wish you--and your waitress--all the happiness in the world.

[carlonero]

First, maazel tov!

After the passage of Proposition 8 and Connecticut's Supreme Court ruling that heterosexual-only marriage violated that State's Constitution, the window for us (both New Jersey residents) to marry opened.

We went to Stamford and filed for a license the Monday before Thanksgiving, and then spent the rest of the day with old Stamford friends to arrange the logistics Allen's three daughters from a previous marriage--who consider me a parent--joined us with their husbands, boyfriend, and our grandson for Thanksgiving. The next day we got married in Stamford.

We kept the actual ceremony small, low-key, and are having a full-scale luncheon on June 7 to invite more of our families.

To any who argue that celebration is premature, I cite the example of a former neighbor of minewhose family lived on the Côte d'azur. After 1942 the Jews in his community were sheltered by their non-Jewish neighbors. He made Bar Mitzvah in 1943, and the reception was held outdoors on property belonging to the Catholic Church. He and his family found reason to celebrate.

I know that the DOMA will be repealed on equal-protection grounds, and that committed same-sex partners will be granted the same rights as everyone else. To do otherwise is un-American, and turns our glorious Constitution and the protections it grants every American into chaff. So we will celebrate, and urge you to do the same--even in California. Living well is the best revenge!

[ZIPTANG]

Seems to me that the voters in California were the winners here as the SC upheld their ballot decision. In all honesty, I could care less about your sexual orientation or what you do with your spouse. Not my problem. Obviously, the voters in California felt that it was in the best interest of the great state of California and ALL of it's citizens to deny certian civil rights to the homosexual community.

Is it therefore morally wrong to deny such rights to someone because of their immorality?

This quagmire we face is a clash between a society, founded amongst other things on religious principles, and a minority group that is at odds with those religious principles.

Obviously the gay community has it's own sense of morality and therein lies the problem. Is the majority going to allow a minority to compromise the entire society?

[shukris]

You are not entitled to change the definition of marriage to suit your whims. If you seek marriage, then fulfill its conditions.

[sharpstick]

If your definition is discriminatory then it will be changed. If you don't like our Constitution you are free to leave.

[Janskats]

Which would be..and according to what priest or priestess..or civil servant?

[TheBlackCat]

Great post, thanks for sharing!

[Stan-Musical]

Congrats on your wedding.

More people like you need to be out front telling your stories. With loud mouth idiocy from people like Perez Hilton influencing people against same-sex marriage, it's important for people to know that there are real life stories such as yours behind the headlines.

[rjking]

oh, and congrats on the CT wedding ;-)

[rjking]

I believe that gays across the country should be more willing to put their money where their mouth is. If your state doesn't support you, take your money and skills and move to one that does. Maybe that's just because I'm a 20-something gay male in CT who wouldn't mind more peers, but seriously, when these states see the brain/money drain of skilled gays and lesbians leaving, they will be more receptive. This may have to do with why new england has been so far ahead on this issue with it's huge problems of losing it's youth.

[HesDanTheMan]

I totally agree with you. It's time to hit these states where they're already hurting. Especially California, why would you want to spend hard earned money in this state when they did this?

[PlaceboStudman]

Cowering in the corner...like frightened little children awaiting a scolding

That is exactly how those who oppose marriage equality, and those of us who claim we should use other quieter tactics are really saying. They want us to cower in the corner and not be seen or heard.

"be quiet and mommy will give you a piece of candy" is what they are saying, when many of us are starving for the sustenance of our rights to even make us feel like whole real human beings.

You're right, Mr Dolby. We need to bring the party to the people, and show our naysayers and those who oppose us that we are just as normal and average as anyone else.

But that won't be done so long as we continue to listen to those who constantly tell us to cower in the corner

[Awake-and-Sing]

I am your fan!