March 4-10, 2004

city beat

The M-Word

Pronounced: Valentine's Day brought wedding bells in LOVE PARK for Cathy Huling (left) and Dolores Fleshman after three years together. Photo By: Heather Bonfanti

Newlyweds and activists speak out on gay marriage in Philly and in the state.

by Deborah Bolling

Last Sunday, Cathy Huling championed her Christian beliefs as she delivered a rapturous service to the congregation gathered at Metropolitan Community Church of Philadelphia.

Through the sanctuary's streaked windows, the morning sun cast a soft light over the mostly gay and lesbian parishioners who had gathered. As Huling preached the power of prayer, thanking God for giving her both life and hope, her new wife sat quietly in the back of the room watching over their son, who is severely handicapped and confined to a wheelchair.

"The consequences of my life had turned me into an angry, bitter woman," Huling told the 60-some people who had assembled. "But then God took me into his heart and relieved me of my burdens. Hallelujah."

On Valentine's Day, Huling and her partner of three years, Dolores Fleshman, were among 37 gay and lesbian couples who exchanged wedding vows during a commitment ceremony at Love Park. Since state law forbids the recognition of marriage between same-sex partners, for all who gathered that day, it was the wedding they never believed they could have.

Huling and Fleshman are among the growing number of same-sex couples across the country who are demanding the right to be married -- and the right to be proud of it.

"I was already in love and committed to Dee, but there's something about the bond of marriage that seals the deal," Huling says. "Now, I'm publicly saying that this is the person I've chosen and who I want to be with for life."

For Huling and Fleshman, their union is as much about love as it is about need. Together, they're raising three children (two adopted by Huling; the other, Fleshman's biological son) who have been diagnosed as disabled. Once married to a man for 13 years, Huling also has a 26-year-old daughter from that relationship who lives on her own.

Surrounded by their children at the end of church services, the couple says they expect only the same rights afforded other American citizens.

"We just want to be equal like everyone else," Fleshman says. "I traveled long and I traveled sad until I met this perfect woman. She's my soulmate. Why should I have to hide that?"

"We have the right to be in love, we have the right to be married, and we have the right to bind ourselves to one another," Huling says. "Our wedding was a public symbol of what's already gone on in our hearts."

In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. The act established the legal definition of marriage as "a union between one man and one woman" but allowed states the option of whether to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state.

Since mid-February, however, city officials in San Francisco, New Paltz, N.Y., and Bernadillo, N.M., have performed wedding ceremonies for nearly 4,000 same-sex couples. Their actions have prompted a flurry of court cases and injunctions intended to revoke those marriage licenses and end the practice. But earlier this week, elected officials in Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C., also began advocating for the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, and the mayors of Chicago, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Ithaca, N.Y., and Plattsburgh, N.Y., spoke out in defense of same-sex marriage rights.

Last November, the Massachusetts Supreme Court lit the fuse on this explosive topic by issuing a landmark ruling saying that preventing same-sex couples from marrying violated that state's constitution. Now, the prospect of gay marriage has gone from being a whispery discourse to holding a central spot in the debates of presidential hopefuls. On Feb. 24, President Bush went so far as to call on Congress to approve a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The question of who can and cannot get married, and what rights the institution affords, has gay rights activists around the country -- and in Philadelphia -- crying foul.

"As long as marriage exists as a state-sanctioned institution, that right must be extended to all people," says Rita Addessa, executive director of the Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force. "Marriage is not a civil right; it's a kinship right. The General Accounting Office has indicated that there are more than 1,000 economic benefits that are attached to marriage. Is that fair? Does that discriminate against people who are not married? How do we, as a society, distribute benefits and privileges to all people? I believe that eventually it will be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court and that there will be marriage equality at the end of this. We will move beyond gender definitions and start discussing enhanced family relations."

Franny Price, executive director of Philly Pride, says that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same support that straight couples enjoy.

"I'm from the hippie generation, so I never really believed in marriage," she says. "It was just a piece of paper. But now I feel differently. Being gay, you don't get the respect or the acknowledgment that yours is a really solid relationship. But people do respect that little piece of paper. And I'm about having our relationships respected."

In 1998, under then-Mayor Ed Rendell, City Council narrowly approved the Life Partnership ordinances, a package of laws amending the term "martial status" to include "life partners" in the categories of persons protected from discrimination on the basis of race, sex and religion. The legislation required employers to grant benefits to same-sex life partners of city employees. A group of taxpayers opposed the legislation and sued the city, saying that it did not have the power to create a new marital status and that the new ruling pre-empted established state law. Their actions prompted a Commonwealth Court reversal in 2002, which the city is now appealing. In Philadelphia, however, the issue of legalizing gay marriage is not yet up for discussion.

"Mayor Street does not have the power to create marriage," says spokesperson Luz Cardenas, explaining that if the mayor did sanction gay marriages, he'd be breaking the law. "However, he has been very supportive of the city's domestic partnership legislation, which is currently under review in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court."

Cardenas says oral arguments in support of Philadelphia's Life Partner ordinances will be made before the state Supreme Court next month.

While the notion of gay and lesbian marriages may seem novel to many, it's certainly not an entirely new phenomenon. Even in Philadelphia.

Three years ago, Katie Somers and Laurie Barrow were married at the Old First Reformed Church at Fourth and Race streets. Surrounded by family and friends, their ceremony marked the first time that the church issued a certificate of union to a same-sex couple.

"I knew for a long time that I was gay and that I would meet a person that I would fall in love with and marry -- just as my parents did," Somers says. "We're traditional people. We cut the same way as straight people; we bleed the same way; we pay our bills the same way. We want to be married the same way. I'm gay and I'm married to a woman. I'm very proud of that."