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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Toby and Jean Adams moved to Auburn, Calif., to raise their daughter in a close-knit community with good schools. The reaction of their neighbors and fellow churchgoers -- from anger to acceptance to confusion -- mirrors Middle America's evolving attitudes toward gays and gay marriage.
Oct 20, 2003 | St. Luke's Episcopal is a small red-brick church that stands shaded at the corner of two tree-lined streets, not far from the main square of Auburn, Calif. In a town of many churches it is the second-oldest one, and its congregation, like the town, is almost entirely conservative and white. In St. Luke's, an American flag hangs over the pulpit, and nearly every Sunday of late there are family members in Iraq to pray for listed in the bulletin. At service, there are men who lean heavily on their canes when the congregation is called to stand, and white-haired women nearby whose help the men refuse. After the sermon they all give thanks for the blessings in their lives, and sing.
One recent Sunday, newlyweds Jean and Toby Adams walked to the altar and held hands. The women had been married two weeks before, but not many in the congregation knew that yet. This was Jean's first time in Toby's church, and because she had grown up in a similar congregation in small-town California she was cold with sweat on her way to the altar. The 10 or 12 steps to the front of the church seemed long to her, but when they arrived and turned to face the congregation, Toby was clear voiced and calm. "I would like to give thanks for our marriage," said Toby, and stopped. There was a pause as the senior warden hurried over to them, turned to the congregation, and took Jean's free hand. "Let us give thanks for how open our church is," he said. Only one couple left the church as a result.
Since its founding in 1887, this was the first time St. Luke's had ever had a same-sex marriage proclaimed within its walls, and no one knew how the parish would react. This is not a church used to change; when they received their first female priest, this year, they decided to call her Father Marcia because they didn't know what else to call a woman priest. Still, the recent votes by the national Episcopal convention to approve the first openly gay bishop and to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages mean that St. Luke's is now faced with a challenge far more controversial than what to call female priests. While most of the congregants like Toby and Jean, some worry about the legal and religious changes the two might come to represent. "Up until now there's been kind of a don't ask, don't tell policy," says Toby, "and with the ruling that's changed."
Though Jean and Toby Adams didn't move to Auburn with their 3-year-old daughter Kalen to make a political statement, in the year they've lived here their very presence has done it for them. They weren't married legally -- there are no states that officially recognize same-sex marriage -- but in their daily lives they still live quietly and openly as wife and wife: at church, in the neighborhood they live in, at the preschool attended by their little girl. In many ways the Adamses are the all-American family -- Toby, 37, a software project manager, and Jean, 30, a remedial writing teacher for adults -- and if one of them were a man, their neighbors would probably regard them as model parents. Instead, people who've lived in the town all their lives are planning to move now that a same-sex couple lives down the block; others cheer the women on. As for the majority, they just don't know what to make of the Adamses yet -- but as time goes on, they're going to have to decide.
Like other small towns across the nation with low housing prices and good schools, Auburn is an attractive place to raise a family. It has the look and feel of an Old West town, but it's also close enough to Sacramento and San Francisco to have a few cosmopolitan flourishes. And as same-sex couples increasingly demand -- and win -- rights similar to or the same as those taken for granted by heterosexual couples, more of them are seeking the quality of life offered by the heartland. The mixed response that Toby and Jean Adams are finding is, perhaps, emblematic. For other small, conservative towns across the country, Auburn is either a beacon of hope or a warning siren.
There are a number of places in the United States today where a gay couple pushing a stroller is considered unremarkable, and if you live in such a place long enough it's easy to believe the United States will soon follow Canada's lead in legalizing same-sex marriage. Hawaii, Vermont and California all grant some legal rights to domestic partners, and this fall the Massachusetts Supreme Court is poised to hand down what many believe will be a decision to legalize same-sex marriage rights across the state. But as the number of states recognizing same-sex unions grows, so has the backlash, and now a coalition of right-wing Christian groups has vowed to end the struggle once and for all -- through a constitutional ban.
Sponsored by 70 House Republicans and backed by the ultra-conservative Family Research Council and 24 other Christian groups, the Federal Marriage Amendment would legally define marriage in the United States as consisting "only of the union of a woman and a man." If passed, it would nullify every current state law granting same-sex rights -- and prevent states from passing new ones. And while Bush has not yet come out in favor of the amendment, he did throw a bone to the churches who began promoting it on Oct. 12 -- one day after National Coming Out Day -- by officially proclaiming last week to be "Marriage Protection Week" nationwide. Though same-sex marriage may not be the defining issue in the 2004 presidential race, some experts believe it will be a key issue in small towns and conservative states nationwide.
Auburn may be only a three-hour drive from San Francisco, but in many ways it is closer to the heartland towns of the Midwest. This is a deeply Christian town -- there are five churches within walking distance of the Adamses' home alone -- and the ratio of homes to pickup trucks to American flags on their block is 20 to 18 to 7. Auburn is so all-American that it has occasionally become the Hollywood stereotype: For the small-town scenes in "Phenomenon," the 1996 movie about overcoming intolerance, Auburn was the backdrop. Now that the population is growing with refugees from the big cities, many native residents resent the less traditional ideas they bring with them.
It was into this climate of flux and conflict that Jean and Toby arrived a year ago, and they didn't know what to expect. Toby was hopeful that by being there in a "not too pushy, not too political way," people would come to like and accept them for who they are, and so far, she's seen no overt reason to think the neighborhood doesn't. Nonetheless, Jean still has doubts about an incident that occurred soon after they arrived: In two weeks, she had four flats. "Right after I got out here, I had to replace two of the tires on my truck," she says. "At first I thought someone had stuck nails in them on purpose." These days, Toby and Jean try not to be any more obvious about their relationship than any other couple on the block, though Toby occasionally gets frustrated by the implicit decision they've made to not get in people's faces with their relationship. "We moved here so we could just mow the lawn and then sip some lemonade like the rest of small-town America, but one morning some Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at our door with a pamphlet about 'building stronger marriages,'" she says. "And as they walked away, I told them that if they wanted to help our marriage, they should vote for same-sex marriage rights, but when I tried to follow them to make sure they'd heard me, Jean shushed me and said she didn't want to get political, she just wanted to get to the farmers' market." While no longer openly suspicious, Jean remains more shy and guarded than Toby, for good reason: She has seen this kind of town from the other side.
