GLBT Fortnight in Review, February 20, 2013
BY ANN ROSTOW
Bad Form
Maybe it’s because I’ve a news writer for the last couple decades, but of all the stories I’ve encountered in the last two weeks, I was most astonished by the style martinets at the Associated Press who (according to an internal memo) have decided to use the word “partners” or “couple” to describe legally married gay spouses.
You may know that we’re all supposed to consult the AP style guide for correct usage, although many of us just wing it. Today, I am proud to be a member of the latter category. Is the AP waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the Defense of Marriage Act before deigning to refer to married gay couples as husbands or wives? Or “married?” Or “spouses?”
Maybe five years ago they could be excused for a little confusion. Back then, you could only get married abroad, in Massachusetts, or briefly in California. With many civil union partners and others calling themselves married or using marital terms, the mavens could well have decided to err on the side of ambiguity.
But we are living in country where you can legally marry in nine states. The policy should be simple. You refer to couples as married, domestic partners or civil union partners. And how can you tell which category is correct? You’re a reporter for God’s sake! It’s your job to find out.
The AP makes an exception for people who refer to themselves as married, or who use the terms “husband” or “wife” in a quote. But this seems doubly odd. First, it calls into question the general rule that obliges reporters to use non-marital terms for everyone else. Second, it allows people who are not legally married to self-identify as married even when they’re not.
I am guessing that the AP doesn’t want to embed a political viewpoint into its style guidance, but with this outrageous move that’s exactly what they have done. They have determined that married gay couples are not really as married as everyone else.
You may recall that the AP pedants recently came out against the use of the term “homophobic,” based on the notion that “homophobia” is not a psychiatric disorder and/or that people who dislike gays do not do so out of “fear,” which is of course the meaning of “phobia.” You know what, AP? The meaning of words evolve. Homophobia means dislike of gays. And yes, it’s often based in fear. What next? Banning the word “gay,” because it really means “lighthearted and carefree?” Who’s in charge over there?
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Viva La Vida
The Mexican Supreme Court ruled in favor of three gay couples trying to marry in the state of Oaxaca back in December. But the other day, the Court issued its sweeping written opinion in these cases, making clear where it stands on matters of gay rights in general. And like our neighbors to the north, our neighbors to the south are way ahead of us. (Perhaps we can close the gap this summer.)
The Mexican high court cannot rule on a nationwide basis, and can only change law in the states after ruling on five cases (J. Lester Feder at Buzzfeed tells me). Since the most recent ruling involved three cases, the folks in Oaxaca are getting close to marriage rights. But more importantly, the decision will pave the way for other state activists to make marriage claims. Marriage rights are available to gay couples in Mexico City and in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan peninsula (think Cancun and Cozumel). Those marriages, as well as the civil unions allowed in the U.S. border state of Coahuila, are recognized throughout the country.
Mr. Feder also noted that the recent ruling took strength from a 2012 gay rights victory from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, suggesting that the road is paved for other Latin American countries to make progress. Marriage equality is already the law in Argentina and Uruguay.
By the way, while I was cruising on Buzzfeed I learned that a pair of gay penguins in a Danish zoo have become parents. Sadly, the zookeepers in Odense have failed to name the birds, which takes some of the color out of the story, don’t you think? We do know, however, that in their desperation to create a family, the penguins tried to steal eggs from other couples and also tried to hatch a dead herring. Happily, one of the zoo’s females produced two eggs and abandoned the extra. The egg was given to the boy penguins, and they successfully nurtured it to chickhood. We will know its sex in a few months when it grows feathers. And I trust we’ll have some awww-inspiring nicknames for the whole family by then.
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Bu-Bye Pope
Was I the only one who thought, and still thinks, that the media hoopla surrounding the Pope’s resignation was a bit smarmy? Fine, the Pope is always going to be an international figure, but enough is enough. Is there some rule that all popes are to be treated as saintly father figures one step down from Christ himself? And was it a heroic gesture of some sort for a frail man in his mid-eighties to resign from a demanding public job?
I, for one, could not have cared less. But then, there are many things I don’t care about. For example, I didn’t care about the killer in LA who died in a burning cabin the other day. Why did we have split screen coverage of the flames when we were minutes away from the State of the Union speech? It would have made sense if the cabin had been surrounded and the guy was about to emerge. But all we saw was some woods and something on fire in the distance. There was no “breaking” news.
Indeed, it is truly a shame that the nation’s assignment editors do not consult me personally in advance of every key decision.
Moving right along, I left my list of stories in my car and although the car is sitting in my driveway, it feels very very far away. I know that I was supposed to cover the Valentine’s day vote for marriage equality in the Illinois senate. And indeed, I was intending to lead this column with Illinois politics. After all, there’s a good chance that equality will pass the house, although the vote count is reportedly close. And unlike the situation in Rhode Island, where we will probably be waiting weeks or months for the state senate to take up the house bill on marriage, it sounds as if the Illinois house will debate marriage fairly soon. Maybe this week. Maybe starting today.
So if all goes well, the Windy State will become the tenth bastion of freedom in the nation. But the emphasis is on “if all goes well.” Here’s the situation. If I were to start this column with Illinois news, crowing about how close we are to marriage rights, overflowing with optimism, things would go south. The house would delay debate. We’d lose a close vote. Something bad would happen. But if I bury this exciting development in the middle of an item in the middle of the column, then the sky’s the limit!
First Illinois, maybe in a matter of days. Then we’ll see if our adversary, Rhode Island senate president Teresa Paiva Weed, eventually allows debate on the bill that has already passed the house. If that bill noses through, we’ll have eleven states on our side. And keep in mind that Delaware activists are set to push marriage through the Corporate Headquarter State legislature like a knife through butter. We could have an even dozen by May Day!
By the way, the ease in which knives go through butter depends entirely on the knife and whether or not the butter has been refrigerated. Let’s hope that Delaware activists have a ginzo knife and the butter’s been sitting on the counter all day.
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Beyond Basic Rights
There are marriage efforts underway in other states too, albeit with dimmer prospects. Believe it or not, we even have a bill in the Texas legislature to strip the constitution of its ban on recognizing gay couples. True, the bill has a snowball’s chance in Austin in August, but you have to start somewhere. I read that Mississippi just ratified the 13th Amendment a few days ago, so I think we can expect Texas to allow same-sex marriage by the end of this century at the latest. (Lawmakers in Mississippi reportedly had not realized that theirs was the only state that had yet to formally abolish slavery until they saw “Lincoln.”)
In Oregon, where prospects are not dim, just a bit far away, activists have announced plans to take an equality amendment to the 2014 ballot. Oregon voters condemned marriage rights back in 2004, but they did so by a relatively small margin for the times. Plus, that was ten years ago.
Basic Rights Oregon thinks the time is right to bring the issue back before the voters, and if they are successful, Oregon would become the first state to repeal an anti-marriage constitutional amendment. Think about it. We went through years of statewide votes. We’re not going to reverse those votes in the deep red states, but we may well be in store for a raft of new statewide elections in places like Oregon, where we have a solid chance for success.
Over at the Supreme Court, meanwhile, I think we have something like 58 hostile friend of the court briefs now piling up for both the Prop 8 and the Windsor case. Soon they will be joined by dozens of briefs on our side, and without going on and on about it, I just want to remind you again to watch to see if the U.S. Justice Department files an amicus brief in the Prop 8 case in the next day or so. This is the most newsworthy possible event between now and the oral arguments in late March.
And before we leave our favorite subject, have any of you seen the marriage equality ads now airing nationally? Freedom to Marry and the Human Rights Campaign have put together an impressive spot, featuring clips from Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama all calling for marriage rights. Truly, we are on the offensive.
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It Won’t Get Better
Should I go out to my car? Or should I just blather on for a few more lines at random? I agree dear Readers! You can read about the European court ruling on gay adoption somewhere else. Maybe there was also a gay soccer player somewhere. I can’t remember.
So, I just read that the “It Gets Better” video project is about to launch a version in South Africa. One of its star presenters was to have been Oscar Pistorius, the legless track star who recently shot his girlfriend to death “by accident.” Pistorius has now been dropped from the anti-bullying campaign.
“Just remember that you’re special,” Pistorius said in the now-abandoned clip. “You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to change. Take a deep breath and remember; ‘It will get better.’”
Newsflash. It’s only going to get worse for Oscar, unless he manages to convince the court that he fired several rounds through a locked bathroom door because he thought an intruder was hiding out in the john.
I’ve never had an intruder in my house, and I have no doubt that it would be terrifying. That said, I’d feel much better about it if the dangerous criminal was locked in the bathroom rather than running around loose in the house. Further, if I were the type to shoot someone, I think I’d wait until the person emerged, if only to verify that the supposed intruder was not my dog, my former roommate, a confused bum, a distant cousin, a drunk neighbor, or the love of my life. Hell, I might even ask who’s there in a loud voice before unleashing the firepower. Then again, I’m special.
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arostow@aol.com
