Standing beneath the dome of San Francisco’s City Hall last week, amid floral bouquets and wide-eyed onlookers, Josephine and Gieseppina made their vows and were married; they have been together for eight years. Josephine works for the electricity company and Gieseppina works in a store. But their union is more than just an act of love. It is also a political statement.
‘How come I live in the land of the free, yet am not free to spend the rest of my life in my own country with the woman I love?’ said Josephine. ‘If Gieseppina were a man, we wouldn’t have this difficulty.’
For the past two weeks, 3 500 gay and lesbian couples have travelled to San Francisco, among them the talkshow host and actress Rosie O’Donnell and her partner, Kelli Carpenter, as well as others from Australia, Germany and Britain, taking advantage of Mayor Gavin Newsome’s decision to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples. It is a simple ceremony, presided over by a voluntary army of marriage commissioners, and takes less than five minutes. The move has outraged many in conservative America, not least President George Bush, who has vowed to seek a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.
On Friday, 24 ceremonies were performed for gay men and lesbians as a little-known mayor of a small upstate village thrust New York squarely into a dispute that has divided the country in recent weeks. Almost immediately the office of Governor George E. Pataki in New Paltz, 128km north of Manhattan, asked Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney-general, to seek a court order to halt the proceedings, state officials said. Spitzer, a Democrat considered a likely candidate for governor in 2006, rejected the efforts of the Republican governor.
‘We will not seek an injunction against either the mayor of New Paltz or any other mayor solemnising marriages in the state,’ Spitzer said. Whether the weddings would be considered legal under state law is likely to be decided by the courts.
The ceremonies in the picturesque university town of New Paltz came as a surprise to many officials, who have been conspicuously silent on the issue, even as it has erupted nationally. The last census counted nearly 50 000 same-sex partner households in New York, and, by some estimates, 500 000 gay residents.
Coming with little warning, the ceremonies left many lawyers and politicians struggling to respond, while independent observers and advocates for gay rights said that the move may signal a shift in the scope of the cultural struggles — from big cities to small towns.
But it is not just the row over gay marriage that has rocked America. There is a wider culture war, a political war that is pitting traditionalists against liberals. And it is a geographic war that sees the East and West Coasts divided from the vast — and more conservative — heartland.
In an election year America’s morals and sexual behaviour are at the centre of the political stage. From gay marriage to abortion, from Bush’s promotion of sexual abstinence to cracking down on sex on TV, America is fighting a battle over values that is now at the centre of the fight for the White House.
It is also a bitter battle. On the streets outside San Francisco City Hall, a rag-tag band of Christian demonstrators, many flown in from other parts of the country, waved banners declaring ‘I hate faggots but I love Aids’ and hurled abuse at the happy gay couples as they left the building. ‘You’re hurting the children,’ they screamed.
Behind the yells and the insults lies a political plan. Though Bush is undoubtedly sincerely conservative in his personal beliefs, putting sexual morals into an election campaign has the effect of energising his conservative base.
This is vital for Republican strategists. Conservatives have been rocked by recent moves allowing illegal immigrants to work in the US and the spiralling budget deficit. Moreover, in 2000 strategists estimate at least four million conservative evangelicals failed to vote for Bush. In an election both sides expect to be tight, mobilising that voting bloc could make the difference between winning and losing.
So far it looks as if Bush’s strategy has scored a bull’s-eye. ‘I was very proud of the President. This engages the Democrats on their moral values,’ said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Families Association. The AFA, one of America’s biggest conservative lobbying groups, is planning a voting drive to get conservatives to register. Wildmon is under no doubt about what he believes is at stake: ‘When you talk about abortion, people like me believe you are talking about a human life created in the image of God.’
There is a cultural backlash across the US. Last week two of America’s most infamous ‘shock jocks’, Howard Stern and Todd Clem, were hauled off the airwaves as the broadcasting industry braces itself for an increase of the obscenity fines.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, shock jocks came to symbolise a new form of American entertainment, brash and controversial and often breaching the boundaries of good taste. However, as the number of shock jocks soared, the stunts they had to pull to attract listeners became increasingly offensive. Stern once made one of his guests — a porn star — clean out a toilet bowl with her hair. Clem has got in trouble for castrating and slaughtering a pig during his show.
Following a furore last month when singer Janet Jackson flashed a breast during the half-time show at the Superbowl, broadcasters have cracked down on anything deemed remotely offensive. Some TV shows have axed sex scenes and MTV has removed risqué music videos from its daytime schedules.
The values issue is a huge problem for Democrats. John Kerry, widely tipped to be anointed the Democratic candidate after this week’s bout of primaries on ‘Super Tuesday’, has refused to support legalising gay marriage. Democratic strategists know that being a liberal on values is unlikely to win many votes in the key states of middle America, far from the coastal strongholds of California and New York.
But for Bush, this is friendly territory. He makes no secret of his close links with Christian conservatives and sexual abstinence campaigners. Last week Rebecca St James, a leading abstinence lobbyist and singer, led a Bible study class at the White House itself. Bush is also drawing up a project that will pump millions of dollars into promoting sexual abstinence as a form of sex education. He has also announced a drive to promote marriages (between men and women) that has been allotted more than $1-billion of funding.
This is music to the conservatives’ ears. ‘I think those sort of things will be under threat from a Democrat President. This is just a sex-saturated culture,’ said Mike Long, an abstinence campaigner who tours schools encouraging teenagers not to have sex before marriage.
But campaigners such as Long and Wildmon face an array of challenges, especially over issues such as gay marriage. Powerful judges have set the pace in states such as Vermont and Massachusetts, declaring gay couples should have the same rights as straight ones. It is an issue reaching other courts, too, as activists pick off states one by one. In New Jersey, seven gay couples have their case before a state court.
‘We can’t fully protect our family if we can’t get married. We don’t want to cross state or national borders to get married, which is why we’re working this out here in our own state,’ said Marcye Nicholson-McFadden, who has been with her partner, Karen, for 14 years. They are raising two children.
Where the courts are not available mayors such as Newsome can step in, defying state law and issuing marriage licences. In New Paltz Mayor Jason West married four gay couples on Friday.
That has provoked backlash in the heartland. Ohio has passed legislation specifically banning same-sex marriages, aiming to strike the first blow before a court does. Other states are set to follow suit, further polarising the nation on the issues of sex and values.
It is impossible to predict how the battle will end. Though Bush’s amendment is almost certain to fail to get the required two-thirds backing of Congress, it has succeeded in placing conservative morals at the foreground of the election. Democrats are on the defensive and Bush’s key voting base has become energised like never before.
But in San Francisco, no one should forget the real human stories being played out in front of the cameras. ‘It’s so wonderful to a part of such a loving, joyful moment,’ said retired schoolteacher Donald Bird, who married his partner of 37 years on Valentine’s Day and has presided over 50 weddings since, including that of Josephine and Gieseppina.
Sarah Wilson, a San Francisco lawyer who happened to be passing through city hall, acted as Josephine and Gieseppina’s witness. ‘It makes me proud to be a Californian; to live in a state where we recognise a person’s right to express their love through the institution of marriage,’ she said. – Guardian Unlimited Â