US - Newspapers Debate Announcements About Ceremonies for Same-Sex
Unions... [Fox News - AP]

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,31391,00.html


Newspapers Debate Announcements About Ceremonies for Same-Sex Unions
Saturday, August 04, 2001


PHILADELPHIA ‹ When truck driver Alex Valerio and publicist Chris Volker
decided to spend the rest of their lives together, they did what many
couples do ‹ contacted the local paper.

An account of their meeting and romance ran prominently in the July 15
Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday magazine "In Love" column, accompanied by a
photo of the laughing, tuxedo-clad men standing before the former Roman
Catholic priest who performed the commitment ceremony.

"It was such a special occasion," Volker said. "I figured 'All these other
heterosexual couples do it. Why can't we?"'

A growing number of newspapers are including same-sex ceremonies along with
traditional weddings and engagements, sometimes in sections renamed
"Announcements" or "Couples."

But many newspapers still decline to print same-sex announcements, saying
their readers wouldn't appreciate them, or that they don't run announcements
for unions that are not legally recognized.

"Since our wedding pages are part of the news columns and they reflect the
actual state of society, we do not cover domestic partnership ceremonies,
since they are not considered weddings or legal marriages," said Kathy Park,
a New York Times Co. spokeswoman.

That policy disappointed Joe Quenqua, a New York public relations executive.
When he decided to mark his seven-year relationship with writer Art Smith
with a civil-union ceremony in Vermont, The Times wouldn't run their
announcement.

"It certainly wasn't to make a statement," said Quenqua, who plans a
ring-and-vows ceremony Aug. 30 overlooking Lake Champlain. "We're doing all
the normal things one does when couples get married, and we thought getting
your announcement in The New York Times would be kind of cool."

Some papers print same-sex announcements but keep them separate from the
more traditional variety. The Washington Post does not put them in the
Wedding and Engagement section that runs Wednesday, but rather in a Friday
"Celebrations" section that features bar mitzvahs and debutantes.

Vermont papers started publishing civil-union announcements after the state
became the first in the nation to make such unions legal last year.

"Most of them either mix them or put them on same page in a separate little
area ‹ what I called 'separate but equal' treatment," said Kevin Menken, a
graduate student at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale who has studied
the way Vermont newspapers are handling civil-union announcements.

Some papers charge for the service and treat announcements as paid ads,
which may allow more freedom in content, he added.

Pennsylvania's York Daily Record published an unpaid write-up and photo of
two grooms last fall, which triggered at least 10 subscription cancellations
and 30 phone calls ‹ all but two negative.
"I was actually surprised by how few papers run them," said publisher Dennis
Hetzel. "I might have been more nervous about it if I'd realized that."

Hetzel said editors decided it was contradictory to editorialize about equal
treatment and then exclude people from the announcements page.

"It's really a milestones page and I can't really think of any good reason
to exclude a homosexual couple from announcing that milestone," Hetzel said.

The Patriot-News of Harrisburg bases its decision on whether a marriage
license has been issued, publisher John A. Kirkpatrick said. If a local
couple is married in a state where it is a legal union, the paper would
publish the announcement.

When Lane Bourn, a spokeswoman for the Freedom to Marry Coalition of
Massachusetts, sent out announcements about his own civil union ceremony in
Vermont in July 2000, he found smaller papers ‹ even one he considered
conservative ‹ the most receptive.

"I think that they seem to be much more community oriented, and we're people
in the community, and we had an event and they published it," said Bourn.

END
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Kindly appreciate that Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. having had no editorial
input whatsoever in the above declines to entertain e-mail argument on its
content...
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