MARRIAGE AND WEDDINGS
First, what was happening nationally then in Oregon.
Below is from: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/lgbtq_history.htm
Gay Marriage and Queer Visions “While marriage equality is a recent political movement, sexual minorities have ridiculed the gender exclusivity of marriage for decades. When drag performer Jackie Starr married Bill Scott around 1950, their nuptials took place without the permission of the state, yet legal authorization mattered little to the newlyweds in celebrating their matrimony.
Two decades after the Starr-Scott wedding, Gay Liberation Front members Paul Barwick and John Singer challenged the legality of heterosexual-only marriage by requesting a marriage license in September of 1971. The request was denied by King County. Barwick and Singer pointed out that Washington State law did not specify marriage as a union between a man and a woman, so a same-sex couple should receive a marriage certificate. However, the Washington State Court of Appeals ruled in 1974 that marriage was intended to be a procreative partnership. Barwick and Singer revealed a key logical flaw in the court’s ruling: What if a heterosexual couple could not have children? Why should these partners be given a marriage license while same-sex couples could not? These questions went unanswered for another thirty-eight years.
While Barwick and Singer did not win their case, Seattle was the site of the first successful lesbian mothers’ custody case. Madeleine Isaacson and Sandy Schuster won custody of all of their children when their husbands challenged their custody based on their sexuality by proving they maintained a respectable, religious home. The judge, however, ruled in 1972 that the two women had to live separately. With the help of the Lesbian Mothers’ National Defense Fund, which formed in Seattle in 1974, they won the right to live with their children in a joint household in 1978.
Actors Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors to be married? That was an invitation that went out to 500 people by a gay couple for fun, but the fun didn’t last. Gossip Columnist Rona Barrett reported it was true as did the New York Daily News! Soon after the Jim Nabors CBS show was canceled possibly because of ‘invitation’. Later it came out that both were gay but did not have a relationship other than a friendship.
But in New York, a wedding was held to be known as “the first New York Drag Wedding”. This happened in New York on December 4, 1971, between Liz Eden and John Basso. The mother and father of the bride and the mother of the groom attended. Photos from Drag magazine.
But not everything was happiness. A woman in Santa Clara, California sued her husband for $1.5 million because she said he changed his sex without her consent. The Superior court suit filed by Doris J. Burnell of Placentia said the sex operation shocked her ‘ideals of decency and propriety’ and made her ‘ill, excited, and nervous.” She also claimed that the doctor performed surgery changing her husband’s sex from male to female despite her objections that it violated the couple’s marriage contract. Mrs. Burnell also filed to dissolve her seven-year marriage.
OREGON
Page 15 of the July 1971 issue of The Fountain read The GAY in a STRAIGHT marriage [see below Left] Below Right is part of an article in The Fountain, February 1972 issue about a couple and “gay marriage”.
Below Left is from the May 1973 issue of The Fountain which appears to be the first photograph and acknowledgment of a gay wedding ceremony. Below Right is from The Fountain with a headline that reads, “ Community Center Gay Wedding” on page 9, September 1973.
Speeding forward quickly. There is a lot more about marriage, but at this time, the website is trying to start with the data here and add as time allows. Above Left is from Northwest Fountain, July 1980; Above Left from Cascade Voice, February 11 1983; Below Left from Just Out December 17, 2004 and Below Right from Willamette Week, March 9, 2005.
2014 The Road to Legal Gay Marriage in Oregon Meet the unlikely team that changed the course of Oregon law (and love).
2019 Oregon same-sex marriage case moves ahead in federal court: Readers React https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2014/05/oregon_same-sex_marriage_case.html
2019 Oregon gay marriage ruling set for noon Monday - oregonlive.com https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2014/05/oregon_gay_marriage_ruling_set.html
Updates and information pertaining to this subject will be added as it is found.
Interesting article in 2004 entitled, “Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage”