On a Deadline

When the news first broke, it was just another story, albeit a
triumphant one: California’s Republican-dominated supreme court had
voted 4–3 to strike down the state ban on same-sex marriage,
effectively legalizing gay marriage in the most populous state in the
nation. But it got personal soon enough, via an instant message: “Wanna
get married?”

Jake knew my answer; we’d hashed it out a year or so into our
now-seven-year relationship: Yes. “I do.” Having officially
acknowledged our willingness to commit, for real and for life, we were
loath to involve ourselves in any of the available close-but-no-cigar
approximations. Registering as domestic partners seemed as romantic as
a day at the DMV, while trekking to Massachusetts to get married seemed
like traveling to Quebec to stay in an ice hotel—a quirky lark
that’s beautiful while it’s happening but has little bearing on the
rest of your life. Partaking in any of the inherently limited options
felt like scrambling for a seat at the back of the bus. Our commitment
was legitimate; we’d get married when the law acknowledged as much.

Why did the California decision seem “legitimate” in a way that
Massachusetts’s didn’t? Part of it is proximity: California is big and
close and home to friends we visit annually. But more important is the
sense of the inevitability of full marriage equality the California
decision heralds. This equality won’t be easy or immediate—even
the California triumph comes with the threat of impending invalidation,
with voters given the opportunity this November to overturn the court’s
decision via ballot measure restricting legal marriage to heterosexual
couples. However, as lawyer friends have told me, nothing in this
proposed constitutional amendment invalidates same-sex marriages
performed during this window of legality, opening the door for a
deliciously sticky, decade-spanning legal battle I’d be proud to be
part of and delighted to watch unfold over the rest of my natural
life.

Getting married before California’s November election wouldn’t be a
problem—we’re required to visit Los Angeles between September 3
and October 19 for the pre-Broadway run of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5:
The Musical (Jake loves Dolly like some love Jesus), and popping
into a courthouse to tie the knot would be a delightful curtain raiser.
The only obstacle to full speed ahead is our families, certain members
of which would be crushed if denied involvement with our real-life,
fully legal wedding. These certain members come from both our
families—parents and aunts and siblings.

But mixed among the approving in Jake’s family are those who are
forbidden to approve, explicitly and eternally, on religious grounds.
Specifically, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under
whose guidance both sides of Jake’s family have conducted their earthly
existences for generations. For those who don’t know, Mormonism is
essentially Christianity with an alternate ending: After Jesus’s
crucifixion and resurrection in the New Testament, Mormons believe He
came back to earth, living for many years in the Americas while
compiling a newer New Testament, revealed to LDS founder Joseph Smith.
Distinguishing characteristics of what followers believe is the One
True Faith: sunny dispositions, special prohibitions against
misdemeanor intoxicants (caffeine, games of chance), and most
importantly, a belief in a Mormon-only afterlife, where all earthly
sacrifice is redeemed and families are literally together forever.

Unless a family member is gay. For Mormons, homosexuality is a
choice incompatible with a righteous life, and for Jake’s family, the
idea of “choice” was solidified by the presence of at least two
relatives known to have rejected homosexual temptation to remain true
to their LDS beliefs. I’ve met one of these relatives; from his
insistent eye contact and vigorous massaging of my shoulders, I believe
he chooses not to be gay every minute of every day. Worse was the
perceived precedent these relatives set for Jake, whose refusal to
fight his sinful urges was seen by his family and their church as
unforgivable.

Faced with the challenge of a gay son, Jake’s family members did the
best they could with the tools at their disposal. Unfortunately, all
these tools were provided by the Mormon Church, and primarily entailed
Jake’s mandatory attendance at a church that insisted one of his
deepest natural urges was pure evil. For their efforts, Jake’s parents
were rewarded with their son’s failed suicide attempt followed by a
decade of estrangement.

But everything would be different the second time around. Ten years
after Jake sullied his family’s pristine Mormonism, the family gained
its second gay son when Jake’s 17-year-old brother came out. Jake’s dad
had tortured himself over his failures as a father to his first gay
son, and was determined to do better with his second. He also
understood that this was an experience his church was insufficiently
equipped to help him handle, and sought guidance from outside the
church.

Thus commenced the Great Spiritual Journey of Jake’s dad, a
naturally inquisitive deep thinker who’d been accumulating doubts about
the One True Faith ever since it drove one of his sons to believe he’d
be better off dead. This doubt accumulation was hidden from the
family’s true believers—Jake’s mom and three sisters—who
responded to any challenge to their faith with inconsolable distress.
The source of Jake’s dad’s doubts ranged from the superficial (why did
he derive greater spiritual rewards from Aretha Franklin tapes than
church choirs?) to the fundamental, including at least one instance
where evidence of child sexual abuse within the church was met with
orders to circle the wagons rather than call the cops.

But exerting greater influence than anything else were his gay sons,
whose existence required him to make the hardest decision of his life:
Did he want to be a good Mormon or a good father? Heroically, Jake’s
dad chose the latter, and set about strategizing how to best share this
news with the people it would hurt the worst—his wife, who
believed she and her husband’s shared Mormon faith would literally
unite them for eternity, and his daughters, who’d already made great
sacrifices (early marriage, immediate children) for the faith their
father indoctrinated them into.

Mormon life revolves around the Temple, the exclusive sacred space
that’s home to “secret ceremonies” and extravagantly appointed
approximations of the afterlife. Mormons gain entry to the Temple
through a “temple recommend,” an annually updated document confirming
the holder’s good Mormon standing and successfully paid tithes. It was
through his soon-to-be-expiring temple recommend that Jake’s dad
decided to apprise his wife and daughters about his fluctuating faith.
In short, Jake’s dad announced that when his current recommend expired,
he would not apply for another—an attempt to present his
plate-shifting change in faith as a benign clerical matter. The
announcement was met with wracking sobs from his wife and daughters,
the youngest of whom—18-year-old Marta—took her distress to
a whole other level.

Over several days, Marta prayed to God for guidance. Eventually she
got it, when God instructed Marta to get married in the Temple before
the expiration of her father’s temple recommend—three months
away. Even Jake’s mom and sisters tried to persuade Marta to not rush
into anything, but God had spoken, and in the summer of 2007, mere
weeks after Marta graduated from high school, we flew to Utah for her
wedding to a 26-year-old returned missionary she’d known for a month or
two (she was his family’s babysitter). We weren’t allowed at the actual
ceremony of course—all us unrecommended heathens could only wait
outside. (And if you think being invited to attend a Mormon wedding is
weird, imagine being invited to stand around outside one.)

Still, God and Marta got their wish: During her Temple wedding, her
father was by her side, not by virtue of his own belief, but an
arbitrary expiration date. The whole thing was the biggest
shared-delusion puppet show I’ve ever been required to take seriously,
and a bracing lesson in reciprocal tolerance. The faithful Mormons in
Jake’s family had never treated me with anything less than love and
respect—to my face, at least. (Their church tithes, meanwhile,
continue to fund attacks on my basic rights—see the
just-announced LDS quest to help overturn the California marriage
decision.) Still, if they could grin and bear it when their
family-damning son brought home his gay lover to meet the folks and
sleep in the same bed, I could grin and bear it through a barely legal,
beat-the-clock, sham-sacred wedding. Tolerance is a two-way street, and
smiling politely at each other’s insanity is a big part of what
family’s all about.

Sometimes I fantasize about retaliating against Marta and the
Mormons with a shockingly gay wedding that would fuck with their minds
precisely as Marta’s fucked with mine. But “retaliation” isn’t high
among my reasons for wanting to get married, which are more prosaic: I
want to be around this dude until we’re both dead, and if one of us
finds himself in mortal danger first, I want the other to be able to
legally visit his hospital room. Our nuptials, when they happen, will
be a private affair, conducted in a California courthouse with Jake and
me and a few friends and the spirit of Dolly. Within a month or so,
we’ll have an official celebration, complete with forbidden
intoxicants, and everyone will be invited inside.