Dan's BF an attorney? I thought he was a stay at home dad. Is there a new BF?

"When Daniel Robertson* and Scott Keane* got married three years ago, the wedding was in Vancouver, B.C., for a somewhat obvious reason: They’re both men, and same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in Washington state."

Journalists are seldom careful about semantics, I suppose.

"Somewhat obvious reason" would suggest that gay men and women don't get married in Washington (as my husband and I will be doing next spring on our 10th anniversary).

"Wasn't" is the past tense, and should be present tense.

"Legal" suggests that our marriages are illegal, which they are not. They are not recognized by the state. That doesn't make them illegal.

We are getting married right here in Seattle for a not so obvious reason: U.S. citizens who marry in Canada perform a political act, and our marriage is not a political commitment.

It crossed our minds more than once. We thought about it. We might still do it. But for the big event where family comes in from all over the country, state recognition has nothing to do with the ceremony.

The ceremony is a happy occasion, steeped in either tradition or the deliberate bucking of tradition to create new ones. There is a time to say "fuck you, Washington state," and the ceremony is not that time.

And yes, closeted queers have little credibility or relevance when it comes to making a political statement.

I'm kidding. My boyfriend's a stay-at-home dad. Sometimes we like to role play attorneys, since that's what gay dads are supposed to be.

I agree with Dans rant about not being out to the public stopping you from creating a public record of such a arrangement. What the article doesn't address is technically why they are remaining anonomous. One can rationally assume its becasue they are trying to keep the nature of their relationship secret but they may want to remain anonomous for other reasons not addressed by the topic of the article.

Maybe Nicholas Sesnak invented "Scott Keane" and "Daniel Robertson" because it was easier than finding a real gay couple to interview.

I would believe that, actually. I mean, if I was a lazy journalist, that's what I'd do. It's not like they needed personal details, just names. I'm sure they thought, well, some gay couple must've... and then did it. For all we know, they had Dan in mind.

Those lists they publish are a joke anyways- it's a pure popularity contest amongst the biggest firms. Nothing more.

Am I the only one who gets really bothered by American gay couples who go off to Canada to get married? What's the point of doing this? To demonstrate to the rest of us that, if things in the USA get really bad, you have the money to run off north of the border?

Explain. 'Cause I don't like thinking bad thoughts.

Dan, I love what you do, but in this case, you've made a bunch of assumptions without having all the facts. "Daniel" and "Scott" are friends of mine; I'm quite certain that the reason they chose to preserve their anonymity in the article was not related to any of the reasons you cited, but rather because they are in the midst of foster-adopting their son out of state custody. It's a sensitive process and one of their big concerns is that some homophobic crackpot extended family member from their child's screwed-up birth family may pop up to throw a wrench in the works simply because they're a gay couple. Unfortunately, the adoption system gives so much deference to blood relatives that they have to be careful about surfacing the nature of their relationship to some of the less-enlightened folks who could potentially involve themselves in it. Please give them the privacy to get through this process unscathed, and don't make assumptions about them that, if you were to meet them and really understand the degree to which they are fully evolved and liberated gay men, you would agree are unfounded.

All good reasons, Jeff. But then Seatte Mag should have found some other couple to use in the piece. "Name have been changed" is too loaded in the context of a story about a gay couple—too shame-driven, too bad-old-days. If "Daniel" and "Scott" couldn't be open at this time about their relationship and marriage—which is, again, a public act—then SM should have found someone who could. It made SM look weird and clueless, and the way it was presented made Daniel and Scott look like closet cases.

Boomer @ 8: I empathize with those who choose to do this.

Our straight neighbors got married in Vancouver, and their foreign marriage is recognized in the U.S. There are political and legal reasons to seek recognition from a state authority willing to provide it.

Also there is some psychological satisfaction in having a legally sanctioned marriage, even if it is not honored in your place of residence.

You can easily get married in Canada even if you cannot afford to seek citizenship there. Canada provides a handful of ways to seek Canadian citizenship, and most of them are costly.

We choose Seattle for our ceremony, but it doesn't bother me at all that others choose a location across the border. Actually, sometime after the ceremony we might even take a train up to Vancouver to get a Canadian certificate, just for fun, not to make any point. It's nice up there, eh?

David @ 11

I agree with boomer about the canadian marriage thing, it's a weird thing and i've never known how to read it. dan you're talking about shame-driven gestures--isn't getting gay married up in Vancouver like crossing state lines to marry your 14 year old cousin? stay put and fight the fight

That's a fair point, Dan, and knowing "Daniel" and "Scott" to be quite savvy about such things, my guess is that the fault in how this was presented lies primarily with some combination of the reporter and the editor at Seattle Mag. D & S are the furthest you can get from the closet - they've both been out to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family for decades. I thought it was strange that Seattle Mag used the attention-grabbing asterisk/footnote method of indicating their names had been changed, rather than simply including it in less-obvious parentheses in the body of the story. Also, by not providing even a brief explanation as to why they preferred anonymity, it left the whole thing dangling, inviting speculation as to the reasons why (which you promptly provided).

As to the comments from Derailer and Boomer, be assured that this couple's choice to marry for the first time in Vancouver was a private one, not a political one, and they both do more than their fair share to fight the fight for equal marriage rights here at home.

I agree that fighting the fight at home is a noble cause, but I think that if a couple wants to get married, they should not be criticized for going somewhere that will allow it when they want to do it. Besides, who says it isn't savvy of these couples to get married now in other countries? One of these days, any couple who wants to marry will be allowed to in the U.S. and at that time, those marriages will have to be recognized, just as any het marriage performed out of country is now. And then if Dan and Terry want to file back taxes for all the years they should have been filing as a married couple, well, hey, wouldn't that be grand? What do you want to bet that the lawmakers haven't thought things like that through?

Oh, great idea Amy! We can have a "reparations" movement in the gay community, just like the descendants of slaves...

Hey, Dan, didn't you get married in Seattle a few years ago? Did you get divorced before you got married again in B.C?

David,

I have to disagree with your opinion that U.S. citizens who get married are making a political statement. My husband and I live in Wisconsin (soon to be Seattle) and got married in Toronto 2 1/2 years ago. To us and our families who were there, there was absolutely nothing political about it. It was the most precious day in our lives and a very joyous day for our friends and family. The fact that we can travel in and out of different jurisdictions that may or make not "recognize" it doesn't change the fact our marriage is real and meaningful and that it has transformed our relationship and how our families see us as a couple.

I also believe the fact that we did get legally married was the reason so man people came from wide and far to our reception back here in Wisconsin.

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Thank you Jeff--your words are a nice bit of support against Dan's unnecssary attack on us. I have long appreciated Dan's writings and work on behalf of all our rights and as you mentioned, I have been publicly out for many years, 22 and counting (including regular appearances with PFLAG's Speaker's Bureau). And yes, the reason we used pseudonyms was to protect our (foster) son--I imagine Dan should be able to understand that. In particular, as foster parents, we are legally bound to protect his privacy. I too am disapppointed that Seattle Magazine chose to use a retro formula for noting our pseudonyms, rather than explaining why we had to do so.

Dan: my marriage to "Scott" is not up to you to judge--particularly when you are mostly ignorant of it, though I would hope you would rejoice with us. In fact, we were so excited, we made sure the announcement appeared in the New York Times (with our full names intact). I also sent copies of our wedding program and photos to a number of key senators (including Murray and Cantwell), and the vice-president who were, at the time, considering the proposed constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Sorry I failed to send those to you.

Before attacking us and our marriage, you might have checked with Mr. Sesnak to see why we had wished to remain anonymous.

"Daniel"