The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (34 page)

ROSLYN
   
Sheldon
said that
more
than once. And I chastised him for it each time. It was a
self-defeating, trivial goal. I could never be sure if he was trying to dodge
his responsibility, as if to say to his friends, “See, I wasn’t part of this
‘movement’ after all?” Or did he really believe such an arbitrary measure could
determine the extent of our contribution? For me, the best measure came a few
weeks after
Turning Point
aired. Together with my friend and colleague,
Mark, I showed the program to our

______________________________________________________________________________

*(Many
of these emails were so enlightening that we have added an appendix to this
story, which contains several of the most remarkable.)

psychoeducational
group. We had a long discussion about it, and when the meeting was almost over,
someone asked Mark, “Were you at the wedding?”

            And
he said, “I sure was. The wedding changed my life.”

            I
was shocked because he never said anything like that to me, even three months
after the wedding. I wondered over this comment: Mark’s not struggling through
Coming Out 101. He’s a proud gay man, a social worker, a therapist. He’s a
leader.
How could that one night have changed his life?

            “Until
this wedding, I thought only in terms of the present,” he said, answering my
unspoken question. “Now I see a future.”

CONCLUSION

ROSLYN
   
Remember
Sheldon’s dare, cast heavenward, that there be one more wedding, one year from
now, and then – only then – would he believe our efforts had amounted to
something in the broader community? Well, just over a year from Andrew and
Doug’s wedding, there was, in fact, another large same-sex wedding in Montreal.
And by all accounts, it was marvelous.

ANDREW   
Remember my butterflies
over taking part in a public display of affection with Doug for our
photographer? The last photo in our wedding album is a full-page, panoramic
picture of me planting a kiss on Doug, in the shade of an enormous elm in a
public park on a busy street in downtown Montreal.

            Remember
my concerns over Diane’s tepid reaction to our engagement and impending
nuptials? Doug and I spent our first anniversary together with Diane and her
new husband, Steven, at their splendid wedding in Stowe, Vermont. WE were
gathered together with a crowd of Montrealers who’d trekked a hundred miles
south from home. And in front of some of the same community who attended our
wedding, Dian made special mention of several family members and friends,
including: “My good friends Andrew and Doug, who are celebrating their first
anniversary, here with us, this weekend.”

DOUG   
And remember Roslyn’s
vacillating over what to call out “thing”? I’m relieved to report that by the
time of the big day, our “celebration” was not even a “commitment ceremony” as
far as she was concerned.

ROSLYN
   
It was
a wedding. In every sense of the word.

            Of
course, I couldn’t use the word
wedding
for a while. It got stuck in my
throat. If
wedding
did pop out, my friends would recoil, because they
couldn’t see this event as a wedding. And for a while, neither could I. Then, closer
to the even, all of a sudden people started using the word
wedding
. So I
was very confused. A few friends said, “How are the wedding plans going?”

            There’s
no language for this. There’s no context, no framework. So you borrow, mostly
from the heterosexual world. Because there’s no precedent.

            Once
it was over, though, there was no question what we had experienced.

SHELDON   
Language
is
important. If one of the key goals of gay marriage is providing equal rights
for gays and lesbians, then, though I’m not a legislator, I do have some
thoughts on how that can be best achieved. It seems to me that the aspect of a
gay relationship that is most difficult for people to accept is the sexual
aspect, including the means of having sex. This is based on the underlying
belief of many that if it can’t lead to procreation, to increasing the
population, then it can’t be correct. I therefore believe that if we change the
semantics, it may be helpful. The word
marriage
to many is equivalent to
having children, just as
wedding
to many is between man and woman.

            Why
not use a word other than
marriage
to describe a lifelong commitment
between two people of the same sex? Maybe even create a means of establishing
this bond or partnership in a
legal
way. Such as signing a commitment to
this effect at the appropriate courthouse, automatically creating legal
obligations, one toward the other – and conversely, granting them
rights
similar to a heterosexual couple. What words to use, I leave to others. But
create legal obligations and grant legal rights – just don’t use the same
terminology denoting a heterosexual marriage. (If this sounds similar to
“separate but equal,” as it was applied to the black population, maybe this
could be a
beginning.
)

            Funny
enough, soon after I penned the previous paragraph – the ink practically drying
on the page – I picked up that morning’s
Montreal Gazette
. The first
article I saw carried the following banner headline:

COURT: GAY BENEFITS CAN’T BE
‘SEPARATE BUT EQUAL’

            The
gist of the article: a federal court judge ruled that the federal government
must integrate gays and lesbians into benefit programs by changing the
definition of
spouse
to encompass same-sex couples. So maybe Canada is
more enlightened than the United States in this field!

ANDREW   
Reality check: I would
love to report that after our wedding, and once
Turning Point
had aired,
the sun blazed, birds chirped, and every gay boy and girl lived happily ever
after. In our own little cocoon, reading emails and seeing the ripple effects
in the lives of our friends it certainly felt like change was in the air. The
reality is, of course, much more complicated. The morning after the program
aired, I arrived at work wondering what reactions would be from staff who had
previously been aloof. I hung around the front desk, engaged in mindless
chatter, expecting someone to finally bring it up. Nothing. No one said a word.
Finally I asked, “Did you see the show last night? You know, the one my partner
and I were a part of?” One person said she had taped it, and thought it was
“interesting.” The other two said they hadn’t, and let it drop. Later in the
day, one of the nurses with whom I was friendly approached me. I realized I
hadn’t told her about the show, but asked if she had seen it.

            “No,
I didn’t.”

            “We
taped it. Would you like me to bring you a copy?”

            “No.”
And with that, she abruptly changed the topic.

            Through
every awkward exchange, I felt a little like I was on a crusade to change
opinions, to open minds. Eventually I had to come to terms with the reality
that everyone is at different stages of acceptance. And that’s something
I
would have to learn to accept.

DOUG   
Reality check redux: if our
family had a rough emotional ride over the last couple of years, then the
society we live in has been on a moral and ethical roller coaster. While we
were planning the wedding the Family Research Institute called homosexuality an
addiction that causes an “octopus of infection stretching across the world.”
Six months before the ceremony, the Vatican’s official newspaper said: “Unions
of homosexuals are a moral disorder.” The paper declared open for “moral
censure” the citizen “who, with his choice, favors the election of the
candidate who has formally promised to translate into law the homosexual
demand.” (Thankfully, our Catholic friends seemed to pay no heed and showed up
for our big day anyway.) Around the same time, U.S. Reform rabbis voted to
support
civil
gay marriage. But most of our Canadian crowd attends
Conservative or Orthodox synagogues, so I fear this news didn’t make much
difference for them. During the same spring, the U.S. Congress passed new
immigration laws. The few provisions that once were interpreted to allow gay
partners to stay in the U.S. were eliminated. And on May 31, 1996,
Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois said, in support of the Defense of
Marriage Act: [A same-sex union] “trivializes marriage and demeans it.” Such
marriages, Hyde continued, “condone public immorality.”*

            And
less than a month after our nuptials, the “Defense of Marriage Act,” championed
by Representative Bob Barr of Georgia (twice divorced and thrice married), was
signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 29, 1996.

            While
we were working on this book, in June 1998, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott compared gays and lesbians to alcoholics and sex addicts: “There are all
kinds of problems, addictions, difficulties, experiences of things that are
wrong, but you should try to work with that person to learn how to control that
problem.” And the next month, U.S. House Republicans introduced a proposal to
deny federal housing money to communities that provide benefits for unmarried
domestic partners.

______________________________________________________________________________

*Two
years later, Hyde admitted to committing adultery while in his forties. He
called the five-year extramarital sexual relationship a “youthful
indiscretion.”

            Despite
all that transpired here in the states, on the other side of the forty-second
parallel, Canada was on a very different path. In May of 1999 (and not long
after the federal court decision Sheldon just mentioned), the Supreme Court in
Ottawa announced a landmark 8-1 decision, finding that the definition of
common-law spouse should also include same-sex couples.

            That
same month, Andrew and I saw an off-Broadway play that stripped away the
politics and moralizing that surrounds most public discussion of same-sex love.
“The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” Paul Rudnick’s gay retelling of the Old
Testament, was both hilarious and surprisingly poignant, and it had something
to unnerve just about everybody. Given what our family had experienced, one
scene struck very close to home. Adam asked Steve (or was it Jane talking to
Mabel?) why they should want to get married. The answer: Because
we’re
entitled
.

            One
of the most stinging criticisms I received from a member of our family (he was
talking not about the wedding, but about his impressions of me after reading
this book) was that I sounded like I thought I was “
entitled.”
It hurt
because it was true. Or close to true. This accusation forced me to a self-examination.
Perhaps I did feel entitled; or maybe it was something else, something similar,
but essentially different. Perhaps he sensed that throughout this process, I’d
begun to feel empowered. Because even though so much of the political news I
was following had been discouraging, the wedding and its aftermath helped me
feel involved and enfranchised, part of some natural discussion.

            Or,
perhaps, I really
did
feel entitled.

            Then
I wondered,
What’s wrong with behaving entitled, as if I deserve the same as
anyone else?
It’s a tricky matter for gays and lesbians. If we appear
entitled, we seem less likeable. But if we behave like we’re deserving of less,
that’s exactly what we’ll get.

SHELDON   
There are many moments I
take away with me after this journey. We’ve talked about most of them in this
book. Others were seen on television. Some, though, don’t translate well to
video or to paper. For instance, the video that was shot at the ceremony, some of
it shown on
Turning Point
, the rest of it on our own video, was very
nice, but it didn’t capture the feeling of the ceremony. The depth of emotion
between Andrew and Doug was so clear, it changed the minds of many people
present that day. They could literally see the love they had for each other, in
the vows, and in particular when they hugged at the end of the ceremony. Once
the glass was broken, and we were outside having cocktails, most everybody
said, “
There’s nothing so different about this. The basic underlying theme
of the whole this is love, so why are we so concerned?”

ROSLYN
   
The day
after my daughter, Bonnie, gave birth to her third daughter, Sheldon and I were
on the way to the hospital with Bonnie’s older children. I said to the oldest,
“This is exciting, isn’t it?” And she said, “I can’t wait to see my baby
sister! Oh, Nana, I love babies!” “That’s wonderful,” I said, encouraging her
enthusiasm. She revved up now: “I’m going to have lots of babies, Nana!” I
said, “That’s great. I guess you have to grow up, get married, and then you can
have lots of babies. And aren’t you lucky, you’re going to two weddings coming
up. Aren’t you excited?” And she said, “Oh, yeah. My Uncle Daniel’s wedding.”
She paused. I said, “Danny and Tiffany, that’s right.”