PHOTO: (click photo to enlarge) gay marriage advice by Dennie Hughes "RelationTips: Gay son's wedding," USA Weekend Magazine, Jan. 9-11, 2009, p. 9, inserted in Gazette-Times Sunday newspaper. In 1976, readers of the Corvallis, Oregon Gazette-Times flooded the paper with angry letters and subscription cancellations after gay marriage was covered in a feature story. (See previous posts Gay 1976 newspaper controversy (5/3/06) and Thomas Kraemer, "Views on gays same," Corvallis (Oregon) Gazette-Times, Sept. 13, 2005, p. A11)
PHOTO: Jan. 9, 1976 feature article by Anne Wood, "Gay women: Coming out of the closet in Corvallis, 'Now I want to marry this woman,'" on p. 7-8 of Corvallis Gazette-Times. One of the women profiled in the article came out in a letter to the editor of her student newspaper and she was active in early gay women's groups at Oregon State University.
PHOTO: May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker were married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace. (See Ken Bronson, "A Quest for Full Equality," www.may-18-1970.org self-published May 18, 2004, p. 6-7, 48 (PDF) from Ken Bronson's Web site www.may-18-1970.org on Jack Baker's marriage and my previous post Life Magazine gay marriage 1971 (11/20/08))
Don't ditch your gay son's wedding
My son is gay, and I have never let that get in the way of our relationship. But last week, he asked his mother and me to walk him down the aisle for his wedding celebration, and I don't want any part of it. His mother feels bad, but she agrees with me. How do we get out of this?
R.J., WashingtonDon't turn the day into a political statement.
A: Let me tell you a story: I know someone whose parents decided not to come to her wedding. They said it wasn't a protest, but, well, they weren't social people and preferred not to go. And even though she -- I -- never let that moment interfere in my relationship with my parents, I never fully got over the disappointment and hurt.
When your son celebrates having found the love of his life, he wants the other two most important people in his life to be a part of that joyful occasion.
Don't turn his big day into a political statement on gay marriage. Instead, continue being that loving, supportive parent who didn't let his son's coming out affect your relationship. And if you are feeling uncomfortable at the reception, bow out early -- after the pictures are taken, that is.
If you don't change your mind about going to the wedding, don't force your wife to feel disloyal if she wants to be there. The fact that she "feels bad" says volumes.
How wonderful that gay marriage advice has become so mainstream to be in a "family newspaper" on Sunday morning when children might be reading the comic section! This would have been scandalous thirty years ago.
