Politics A Letter from Paul Barwick
In my feature in this week’s Stranger, I wrote a bit about Paul Barwick, one of the plaintiffs in Washington State’s original gay marriage lawsuit. Back in 1971, Barwick and his lover, John Singer (soon to become Faygele benMiriam), headed downtown from their commune on Capitol Hill and demanded a marriage license from King County. When they were refused one, they sued, leading to Singer v. Hara, the most famous gay marriage case in Washington — until last week’s ruling in Andersen v. King County, that is.
Barwick, who now lives in San Francisco, read my article and sends this email. (For those currently following the post-Andersen debate in the gay community over whether to push the state legislature for marriage-and-nothing-less, or shift gears and begin a campaign for civil unions, or launch a California-style incremental approach — well, Barwick himself seems to favor the “take whatever victories we can get” approach.)
From: Paul BarwickDate: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 08:42:34 -0700
To: Eli Sanders
Subject: Excellent Article
Eli,
I just wanted to tell you what a great job you did with the article “Marriage Denied”. It was an excellent summary of the current situation and brought up some points that I was entirely unaware of.
Even though its been 35 years since Faygele and I kicked this whole thing off I still tend to be optimistic. Sure, the court ruling from Olympia and others around the country have been disappointing. At the same time, though, I remember the state of our community back in the early 1970’s. We truly have come a long, long way, as evidenced by not only the polls of people’s attitudes, but by the freedoms we have now in our daily lives. When I came out, just a year or so before Faygele and I trooped down and demanded a license, the choices I faced in living as a gay man were pretty grim. I could live, as most did at the time, in the closet, not even giving my real name to my gay friends for fear of being outed, or I could live as that major oddity, the “self avowed homosexual”.
That’s not to say that we have achieved equality. But we are certainly closer to it than Faygele and I and all the rest of the queer folk in Seattle and around the nation who refused to accept our place in the closet could ever have realistically imagined at this point.
Perhaps it is for the best that the courts ruled against us. Had it ruled in our favor the other day we would have been in the position of gaining the right to marry at the cost of leaving a majority of our straight neighbors feeling cheated, feeling that once again that an over-reaching government has dictated an unpopular view. So now we are faced with the task of continuing to do what we have shown, in the past 35 years, that we are so capable of doing - changing public opinion person by person.
We are on a roll here. We just need to keep coming out and to keep speaking up. We should take what ever victories we can get, be it civil unions or domestic partnerships. At the rate that we are winning hearts and minds it won’t be long before those straight neighbors themselves begin to see the unfairness between whatever version of “marriage light” we end up with and their full version. At that point they will be the ones advocating equality, if for no other reason than to save themselves the bother of keeping track of two versions of marriage.
Yes, it is a case of two steps forward, one step backwards. Yes those forward steps too often are like slogging through mud up to our knees. But let’s not forget that the hardest part is behind us. We have gone, in 3 and a half short decades, from a point where the idea of same sex marriage was simply an idea so far fetched as to be unthinkable to the point where not only is it being seriously debated, but where only slightly more than half of the people in this country are against it.
As we used to say, “back in the day”
Yours in equality,
Paul Barwick
That's a wonderful letter and a good reminder of how ugly things used to be. Thank you, Paul.
I would have welcomed a decision in favor of marriage but I dreaded the reaction at the same time. It could be that the decision (in the realpolitik sense) is a blessing in disguise for now, dammitall. Well, let us go forward and keep making our case, heart by heart, mind by slow mind, my friends.