Some argue that the stories of gay couples meeting, falling in love and forming healthy relationships that appear in the Times each week are, in and of themselves, subversive. In Steven Goldstein and Daniel Gross' announcement -- the first one in the New York Times' history, which appeared on Sept. 1, 2002 -- for example, Gross revealed what it was like to tell his parents that he had fallen in love with another man. "My mom said, 'You seem like everything's great,'" [Daniel] recalled. "'You seem like you're in love.' I said, 'I am.' They said, 'That's great.' I said, 'His name is Steven.' My mother said, 'Oy,' and was silent for a while."

"That was awesome that they put that story in there," Goldstein says. "It wasn't just that Buffy Worthington III told her mother she was marrying John Pennington IV, and her mother said, 'That's wonderful, darling.'"

Before gay couples started appearing in the Times' wedding pages, Joe Tom Easley, a legal affairs lecturer who lives in Florida and New York, was never interested in them -- even though his longtime boyfriend, Peter Freiberg, loved to read them. Then in August, the two got married in Canada after spending 21 years together. Suddenly, the whole announcement idea didn't seem quite so silly anymore.

"I always thought of it as the page for indefatigable publicity seekers," Easley says. "Now I've become one of them."

Their announcement, which appeared on Aug. 24, 2003, provided more than just a moment of fame and self-congratulation. Easley and Freiberg believe their appearance had an impact on people's attitudes toward gay marriage and homosexuality in general.

"It's important to let people know that there are gay couples out there in love," Freiberg says. "Just like straight couples."

Evan Wolfson is a longtime activist and executive director of Freedom to Marry, a New York group devoted to advancing the cause of gay marriage. Wolfson, long a reader of the wedding page, says that by making a political statement with their presence on the page, gay couples are ensuring that eventually their stories will be looked at as simply human, and not just representative of an embattled minority.

"A straight American will see a picture of a gay couple, and he or she will be forced to ask the question, 'How am I going to treat this couple? Am I going to discriminate against them, or treat them like everyone else?'" Wolfson says. "Most people's instinct will be to do the right thing."

Of course, there will probably always be a certain segment of society that refuses to see gay marriage -- and certainly gay couples on the wedding page -- as simply normal. Guardians of "traditional" marriage feel that the inclusion of same-sex partners in the wedding section undermines the sanctity of marriage as an institution.

"On the same page, we may have pictures of two guys over here, and a guy and a girl over there. And we can be glad that they all found happiness, but this couple over here just is not the same as that couple over there," says Glenn Stanton, author of "Why Marriage Matters," and senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family. "The implication, however, is that the two pictures are morally equal, which means that either the male or the female member of the heterosexual couple just didn't matter -- they matter as people, but the deepest part of their humanity, expressed in their maleness or femaleness, is diminished.

"By denouncing gender roles," he continues. "These announcements diminish our humanity."

So even as conservative opposition to same-sex marriage grows -- led by talk of a constitutional amendment banning it -- some segments of society are accepting a homosexual role in what has been a traditionally heterosexual institution as par for the course. The acceptance of gays in the wedding pages is just one part of this changing attitude.

Nick Gottlieb, 38, whose marriage to Macky Alston was one of the first gay announcements in the Times, definitely wanted to make a statement. His mother, Linda, who produced the hit movie "Dirty Dancing," even made a few calls to friends at the paper to make sure her son got in. Not that Nick really needed any help -- he graduated cum laude from Yale and earned a master's in social work from Smith, while "Macky," or Wallace McPherson Alston III, holds degrees from Columbia and the Union Theological Seminary. But Nick wanted to make a point; he wanted to make sure that their marriage would serve as an example of a gay couple that was just as successful, loving and committed as a straight couple.

The point was made. But something else happened, too. Beyond the politics of the situation, Nick found himself enjoying the moment. For Nick, who grew up in New York, the Times was his local paper. Seeing himself pictured next to his partner on its pages made him feel like a real part of the city he called home.

"With all of the time and attention the paper gave us, it was really nice to feel held up by your community," Nick says. "We were made to feel very important, which is exactly what you want on your wedding day."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

We want to make you a part of this series. What is the state of your union? Did you find the one and never look back, or has finding lasting love been a marathon of trial and error? Did you have a fairy-tale wedding only to watch things crumble once the reception was over, or have you glided along in marital bliss since Day One? We want to hear your stories of joy, romance, heartbreak and pain. After all, partnership, as we all know, is a complex concoction of all of those things. (Please remember: Any writing submitted becomes the property of Salon if we publish it. We reserve the right to edit submissions, and cannot reply to every writer. Interested contributors should send their stories to marriage@salon.com.)

Recent Stories