Everyday People

The following is a lovely Globe Editorial in today's (August 24, 2005) paper:

LISTING SAME-SEX marriages and commitment ceremonies in the traditional ''Weddings" pages of newspapers was controversial when it began a few years ago. But anyone reading about the gay couples in the newspaper cannot help but see how utterly ordinary they are -- or should be.

Wedding announcements often include smiling pictures and mini-biographies: where the couple grew up, their professions and college degrees, sometimes a bit about their parents or where they plan to take their honeymoon. In the past few weeks, The Boston Globe and The New York Times wedding pages have included a handful of gay couples who have had their weddings performed in Massachusetts or Canada, two places where gay marriage is legal. Other than tending to be slightly older than the other couples featured, there is little to distinguish the same-sex announcements from the heterosexual ones. Here is a selection:

A senior lecturer at Harvard Business School weds a manager of a clothing store chain. One is the son of a postal worker from Salem, Mass. The other's mother is the retired organist at a Savannah, Ga., Episcopal church.

A manager of human resources who works at Travelers Insurance Co. marries an assistant professor of human development at the State University of New York. One has a master's degree in public administration, the other has a PhD in psychology. Their parents are from Alabama and Texas.

A Boston charter school administrator weds a recruitment specialist for Teach for America seven years after the two met at a training institute in Houston. One has a master's degree in special education. The other is the daughter of a special education teacher in Oregon.

These six brides and grooms are of different races, geographic regions, and economic classes. They are as representative of the population as any other group. When they are not making history by getting married, they are no doubt working, paying taxes, eating breakfast, and grumbling about the weather like everyone else. Fifteen months after the first gay marriages were performed in Massachusetts, opponents still insist that they somehow undermine society. Not content with a proposed compromise constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage but approve civil unions -- which this page opposes as discriminatory -- they continue to roil emotions by pressing for government decrees that sharing a lifetime is something reserved for heterosexuals.

The stories of the gay marriages already happening are simply tales of commitment, hope, and love. They are not even a reason to stop the presses.