Couples live the stories of gay marriage debate

Published 11:00 am Saturday, August 30, 2003

>While sitting on the outdoor deck of his Langley home one sunny afternoon last week, Ron Childers flipped through a photo album. As he turned the plastic-covered pages, the memories radiated.

“There’s pictures of Richard’s birthday… Oh, there’s Julio’s (the couple’s dog) obedience training…”

It’s a blend of birthdays, anniversaries and numerous vacations. The album is just one of many photo books containing three decades of memories.

Childers, who is 72 this month, has a lot of memories to consider as he and his life partner, Richard Proctor, 68, celebrate this month 31 years as a couple.

Their meeting and life together is like the story of any couple. They met through mutual friends at a social gathering. They built their Langley home in 1977, and since then have split their time between Whidbey and Palm Springs, Calif. They are both former art educators, and owned Childers/Proctor Gallery in Langley for more than 18 years before selling it to current owners Mel Olsen and Roxanne Gaskill.

Even after all this time, they say their love for each remains the same. But something else is changing — society’s reaction to and legal treatment of gay couples is evolving. Gays and lesbians are being allowed to marry in Canada, while some U.S. states are legally recognizing same-sex partnerships.

It’s a change that longtime mates like Proctor and Childers are finding almost unbelievable.

“When we first came together, our relationship was the sort of thing most everyone, including our friends, supported but they didn’t really want to talk about — or we didn’t really want to talk about — I’m not sure which is more accurate,” Proctor said. “I never thought when I came out that in my lifetime gay marriage would be addressed.”

But it is.

Politics and religion enter the debate

Canadian courts made gay marriage in that nation legal in June, with the British Columbia provincial government following in July. This decision made Canada only the third country behind the Netherlands in 2003 and Belgium in 2001 to allow legal marriage for same-sex couples.

Back in the U.S., no state has legalized marriage, but there has been a mounting push for recognition of same-sex couples. California passed a law establishing a domestic partnership registry in 1999; in 2000 and 2001 bills were passed giving domestic partners specific benefits.

It’s not everything some proponents of gay marriage want but, said Freeland resident Marsha Morgan, it’s something.

“My attorney told me there are over 3,000 rights married couples have. The registry gives us two or three,” said Morgan, who along with her partner, Claire Moore, is a part-time resident of Santa Cruz, Calif.

Vermont made history in 2000 by allowing couples to enter “civil unions” that confer some of the same rights as legal marriages. Seven couples filed suit in April 2001 against the state of Massachusetts’ marriage laws. The state’s high court decision, which could conceivably become the first state to legalize same-sex marriages, is still pending.

Here in Washington, same-sex marriages are not permitted. The state does not recognize same-sex domestic partnership, and it is determined by city and county municipalities, along with individual employers, whether domestic partnerships are recognized when giving benefits. Groups such as the Legal Marriage Alliance of Washington, PFLAG and Lambda Legal Defense — the oldest and largest gay and lesbian legal organization in the U.S. — are currently working on litigation, education and public policy surrounding gay marriage.

Just as strong as the push for rights for gay couples is the push against. Washington is among some 37 states — along with the federal government — that have adopted “Defense of Marriage Acts,” defining marriage as applying only to a man and a woman.

The governmental defense of marriage is backed by religious groups, which stand by their faith when denying consideration of gay marriages. Prominent voices are evangelist Jerry Falwell and Pope John Paul II.

On South Whidbey, a place longtime gay and lesbian residents describe as being a haven for same-sex relationships, the religiously faithful are polarized even within their own congregations on the issue.

For example, the World United Methodist Church’s social principles state, “Homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth,” but additionally condone the “practice of homosexuality.”

In Langley, United Methodist pastor David Vergin is what the United Methodist world church calls a reconciling pastor.

“I teach and preach openness to people regardless of orientation, but I always leave my message open for members of my congregation to make their own conclusions,” Vergin said.

While there are churches denoted as reconciling, or affirming of homosexuals, Langley United Methodist church as a whole is not.

“There’s a variety of perspectives within the local church,” Vergin said. “I am a reconciling pastor, and the church council has taken a number of actions affirming homosexuals, but there’s no requirement that members have to agree.”

As for gay marriage, the local church is in the position of not able to consider that.

“The world church says no pastor can perform such covenants, nor can such covenants take place in any United Methodist church,” Vergin said.

Matt Chambers, senior pastor for the South Whidbey Assembly of God, said his church is a Bible-believing church “inspired by the word of God and there’s no room to deviate from that fact.”

“If a church is taking an honest Christian stance they will go by the scriptures, and there’s no record of any affirmation of any other union than that of one between a man and a woman.”

At present, the only South Whidbey church that performs any kind of union ceremony for gays and lesbians in the Unitarian Church.

Venturing to say ‘I do’

To get around the reluctance of churches and governments in the U.S. when it comes to gay marriage, some same-sex couples are heading for the border. Marsha Morgan and Claire Moore were married in British Columbia July 21, 2003, 15 years after they became a couple.

A vacation trip to Victoria with Moore’s sister Kate and brother-in-law Rob was already planned, but following suggestions of marriage from friends and family they decided to add a wedding to the itinerary.

The women used the Internet as their guide, logging on to find where to go for a license and how to find a marriage commissioner, the Canadian version of a Justice of the Peace.

The ceremony was held in commissioner Sharon Russell’s garden, with the only guests being Kate and Rob. Morgan and Moore took vows from the commissioner, and with the help of their witnesses, scrambled them up and added a personalized touch.

Kate and her husband are members of the Episcopal church, so they included “Will you as members of Claire and Marsha’s community support this couple?” to which they gave a response of “We do.”

It was a joyous occasion, but it was followed by a rude awakening.

“When returning to the U.S. they asked us why we were in Canada, and then even with all of this acceptance in Canada, it didn’t feel right telling them we went to get married because it still isn’t accepted in the U.S.,” Moore said.

The couple has been splitting their time between Whidbey and their other home in California, a state where they are registered as domestic partners. They are planning to move to the island full time in the future, and in doing so will have to relinquish their domestic partnership status.

Domestic partnership or not, the couple still finds it difficult to fit into American society as married people can.

“When you go to the doctor’s office and you’re filling out paperwork, they always ask if you’re single or married and what’s your spouse’s name. I don’t fit into either of those, because our marriage isn’t recognized. I want my own box,” she said.

Moore adds that when they went to fill out the paperwork to be married in Canada, even the forms for this newly recognized group of marriages still didn’t have an appropriate box.

“They still had name of bride and groom. The woman apologized profusely and said the forms just haven’t caught up,” she said.

Moore finds it a positive that Canada, a country so similar to the U.S. is accepting of gay marriage.

“It’s no big deal to them. They say ‘What’s the fuss’ and just treat you like a normal couple,” Moore said.

All they need is love

For some gay couples, the desire to be recognized steps away from the political field and comes back to simple reasoning.

Freeland residents Anastasia Brencick — a massage therapist — and Dawn Rhodes — a database manager for the Woodland Park Zoo — celebrated their six-year anniversary June 6. Last Saturday, they were joined together as life partners during a commitment ceremony held at the Greenbank Farm.

Though no legal status comes with holding the ceremony, Brencick and Rhodes wanted to have their own right of passage as a couple, and to hold an event at which they could thank their family and friends for supporting their relationship.

“There’s never been any expectations for us,” Brencick said. “If you’re a straight couple people are always asking, ‘When are you getting married?’, ‘When are you having kids?’ There aren’t too many things gay couples get to do besides buying a house.”

Brencick believes the archaic idea of marriage needs to be tossed and people get back to what relationships are supposed to be about.

“It’s not about us wanting to be like straight people and get married,” she said. “Society evolves. Marriage used to be about business deals and keeping wealth in families. Already marriage has evolved into a partnership of personal growth, and I don’t feel like it’s asking a lot to be a part of that growth.”

“We’re just looking for the same rights,” said Morgan, “not special ones — to have community property with our partners without having to spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees to protect it and not be guaranteed to be safe.”

When preparing for the commitment ceremony, Rhodes and Brencick sat down with the performing Unitarian minister John Luopa and looked through samples of services.

“You could see where they’d been used over and over again with the names flipping back and forth between gay and straight couples,” Rhodes said. “Their message really did hold true for anyone.”

Anastasia and Dawn’s commitment ceremony is “one of many” Luopa said he’s performed in the last 10 of his 17 years as a Unitarian minister. Luopa, who is currently a minister for University Unitarian Church in Seattle, said the Unitarian churches are affirming and supportive of gay unions.

“Two consenting adults who agree to be faithful in love and support of each other is a reason to celebrate,” he said. “It is our church’s religious principles to affirm with worth and dignity every human and support of same sex unions is consistent with that belief.”

Couples unsafe after all

Despite the emerging rights for gays couples, unless same-sex partners take legal action of their own by drafting wills, durable powers of attorney, securing trust funds and other legal arrangements, they have no guaranteed protection in the United States — even if they have a legal marriage certificate from another nation that does recognize gay marriage. Even couples who have a Vermont civil union or are registered for domestic partnership in California are left with little protection once they leave their home states.

Marriages made in Canada are not currently upheld in the United States and no court can perform a divorce, because in doing so that state would have to recognize the marriage.