Another look at gay marriage

Received this photo in the mail today. Our friends Barbara and Fran, posing in front of San Francisco City Hall. They came back to California, all the way from Lancaster PA, to get married.

By the time the photo arrived, Proposition 8 had threatened their marriage, and those of the 18,000 other gay and lesbian newlyweds.

There's something striking about this photo. You'd never know it is a wedding portrait. It is, in fact, a threat to traditional wedding photography!

Here are two women who love each other very much, lived together for years, own a home, run a business, etc. Their wedding portrait couldn't be more mundane, or more subversive.

It isn't fantasy with big hair and too much makeup and expensive clothes no one will ever wear again. It's reality. Their reality. It avoids ALL the stereotypes of wedding photography. With no "role" to play, each is free to be themselves.

It suggests a boldness of thought, an independence of spirit, a "can-do" attitude. It's so fucking "American."

Some day it will be homobilia.

P.S. Really great piece in the NYTimes.

Gay Wedding Portrait

5 November 2008. Obama elected. Same-sex marriage ban wins in CA.

Like many of you I'm fucking pissed off. It just doesn't feel like the dawn of a new era.

To the 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who have wed since June we offer this little bit of perspective.

"Tony, John and Matthew, 1917" it says on the back of the photo.

Looks to me like the best man holding flowers and the newlyweds holding hands. Yes, it looks like, dare I even write the words... Gay Marriage! Brave for 1917.

Sadly, 91 years later, it's still a pretty brave act.