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We are family
Legal marriage or no, same-sex couples are creating
happy homes in Arkansas.
Arkansas Times Janie Ginocchio March
12, 2004
In the company of almost 100 onlookers, John Schenck and
Robert Loyd publicly celebrated their 29-year
relationship on the steps of the state Capitol on Feb.
29. The grooms wore matching black tuxedos with tails,
pink tuxedo shirts and rhinestone brooches pinned to
their collars, instead of traditional ties. Jerry King,
a former Dallas Metropolitan Community Church pastor,
officiated.
The marriage (which isn't legal in Arkansas) was
performed in protest to comments about gay marriage made
by Gov. Mike Huckabee.
"He said that if 'those people' tried to come to
Arkansas, there'd be trouble," said Loyd. "Well brace
yourself, your governorship - we're already here."
Indeed, Arkansas is no different than the rest of the
United States. Gay and lesbian people have always lived
here. For more and more of them, their sexuality is less
of a secret. Nor is acting on it a crime any longer,
thanks to court rulings striking down laws prohibiting
sex between people of the same gender.
Living as an openly declared gay or lesbian still isn't
easy in Arkansas, however. You don't have to look
farther than the letters column of many newspapers or
read the comments of some lawmakers to know that in some
quarters, homosexuality equated with bestiality and
worse.
Now comes the national debate about legalizing same-sex
marriages. Is it time for the debate? Indeed is it, say
some Arkansas couples. Marriage is not in the cards for
many gay couples - any more than it is for many
heterosexual couples sharing the same household. But
others are ready to solemnize their commitment and
challenge laws that make it illegal.
Schenck said he and Loyd plan to marry in Portland,
Ore., where officials decided last week that state law
allows same-sex marriages. Once married, the couple will
return and challenge in court Arkansas's law banning gay
marriage on the ground that it violates the equal rights
provision of the state Constitution. Opponents fearful
of such a challenge have already filed a proposal to put
a constitutional amendment on the ballot that defines
marriage as a union between one man and one woman. (See
sidebar).
"No one else would have the chutzpah to do it," said
Loyd. "We've got to stop them from dehumanizing us." The
couple isn't worried only about the limitations of state
law. If a federal Constitutional amendment banning gay
marriage is passed, Loyd said, gays would be permanently
relegated to second-class citizen status.
The right to marry and receive the same legal
protections as heterosexual married couples isn't a
special right, Loyd said.
"I fought in Vietnam during the Tet offensive for those
rights, and I'll be damned if I let anyone take them
away." Some of those rights include Social Security
survivor benefits, inheritance rights, the ability to
make medical decisions for a partner, or file joint
income taxes.
In June 1969, while Loyd was serving in Vietnam, Schenck
participated in the Stonewall Riots in New York city.
The riots, sparked by a police raid of a Greenwich
Village gay bar, are considered the beginning of the gay
rights movement. The next year, Schenck co-founded the
Gay Activists Alliance of Long Island.
Schenck and Loyd met in Palm Beach, Fla., in 1975. In
1978, Loyd returned to his hometown of Damascus to care
for his ailing mother. "John gave up everything to come
with me," Loyd said.
After Loyd's mother died in 1987, the couple moved to
Conway and opened a hair salon. Their partnership has
endured, but Schenck said they've had trouble ever
since.
"People went crazy when we painted our porch a pale
lavender," said Schenck. In response, the pair painted
the whole building a shocking pink. A sign that says,
"Teach Tolerance" hangs from the porch.
When not campaigning for gay rights and taking up local
issues (the pair successfully fought a proposal to
expand the Faulkner County jail), the couple talks to
college students about the discrimination gays face in
society. Schenck and Loyd break the ice by assuring
students they're not recruiting anyone.
After an article in the Feb. 11 issue of the Conway Log
Cabin Democrat about the couple's speaking engagements,
there was "quite a backlash," including what Schenck
called hate mail. The Log Cabin Democrat received so
many letters on the subject that an editorial Feb. 29
announced no more letters on the subject would be
printed unless they introduced another viewpoint.
The newspaper sent a reporter to cover Schenck and
Loyd's wedding, but decided not to publish a story.
Since the wedding, the pair has received one
handwritten, anonymous letter that quotes several Old
Testament Bible verses, including one that warns
homosexuals "will surely be put to death."
Negative responses don't deter them. Schenck and Loyd
have invited other gay and lesbian couples to
participate in a mass commitment ceremony at the end of
the month. There were no protesters at their earlier
ceremony, but it's doubtful the next event will escape
notice.
"We've been complacent for the last 20 to 25 years,"
said Loyd. "But Huckabee threw down the gauntlet."
Ted Holder, 50, and Joe van den Heuvel, 47, have been
together 13 years. They share a restored, two-story
historic home downtown, and are renovating a house down
the street. Outside, a multi-colored gay pride flag
hangs from the front porch. Inside, the living room is
decorated with an eclectic collection of art, including
a painting of the Madonna and child. Pairs of wooden
shoes sit on the fireplace hearth, a nod to van den
Heuvel's Dutch heritage.
Holder, an attorney for the state Securities Department,
said he spent most of his life not wanting to be gay. "I
fought with it and drank a lot," he said. But his 30th
birthday was a turning point, and he decided to accept
who he was. That Oct. 11, on National Coming Out Day, he
came out to his boss, then-Attorney General Steve Clark,
who took the news well, Holder said.
When he left the attorney general's office for his
present job, everyone there already knew he was gay. "I
tried coming out to my boss on the next coming out day,
but my co-workers said, 'Why don't you tell him
something he doesn't know,'" he said.
Holder said being out in Little Rock is easier than most
gays think it is, at least for professionals. "When
we're open and ourselves, prejudices fall away," he
said.
The key, he said, is holding tightly to the truth that
"we're like anybody else."
Holder was on the board of the Arkansas AIDS Foundation
in 1990 when he met van den Heuvel, who was a volunteer.
They chatted during a birthday dinner for Holder at the
old Spaghetti Warehouse and connected.
Their first date was a few days later, when van den
Heuvel had Holder over for dinner and made an Indonesian
dish. "We've been together ever since," said van den
Heuvel. "And we still make that dish."
Van den Heuvel grew up in the Chicago area, but went to
Hendrix College. Holder also attended Hendrix at the
same time, but they didn't know each other. When they
met van den Heuvel was still getting used to being out,
but being with Holder helped the transition. "Ted's
really politically active, so I had no choice," he said.
The couple is active in their church and belongs to a
group called Integrity, which educates Episcopalians
about gay issues. (The education is needed. The church
is rocked by controversy over ordination of a gay bishop
in New England.) For them, marriage means legal rights,
but also affirmation of their relationship.
Holder said the revulsion about homosexuals expressed by
some conservatives is hurtful.
"They say we're somehow immoral, unnatural - the epitome
of bad. I believed that for a lot of my life and it's
not good," he said.
Van den Heuvel said that when he thinks about how
politicians want to discriminate against the gay
community by banning same-sex marriage, it causes a
"deep ache."
"Our relationship is every bit as life-affirming as a
heterosexual relationship," he said. "I don't know of
anything better in my life."
Amber Hudson, 29, and Dana Whitney, 33, are outwardly
very different. Head shaved, tall and athletically
built, Hudson is more outgoing and outspoken. Her voice
rises in volume in direct proportion to her passion on a
subject. Whitney is smaller in stature and her demeanor
is calm in contrast to Hudson's boisterous presence.
Although they've known each other for almost a decade,
they've been together romantically for two years.
They met through work - both of them were in other
relationships at the time - and became fast friends.
"I used to drive Dana crazy - I used to be lazy and
wild," Hudson said.
After moving on to other jobs, Hudson and Whitney would
run into each other socially. The two were both "single
and loving it" when Whitney decided to play matchmaker
for a friend.
"I was trying to set up a guy I worked with and a friend
of hers," said Whitney, general manager of a downtown
restaurant. "[Hudson and I] were hanging out as friends
and it just kind of developed into more."
"She's the only one I tell everything to, even when we
first met," said Hudson, who attends UALR and has just
started a job with the grassroots organization Acorn.
The couple is in the process of buying their first
house, which will also be home to their three dogs and
three cats. Whitney said they're looking forward to
gardening and completing home projects together.
They said their sexual orientation hasn't been an issue
when dealing with real estate agents or mortgage
brokers. "I'm a pretty private person, so it's not first
and foremost in my head when I talk to someone," said
Whitney. "But [Hudson] will just say it in the middle of
a conversation - she'll get pulled over and tell the
officer that it's her girlfriend's car."
The only harassment she's experienced, Hudson said, was
when she worked at a West Little Rock restaurant where
management demanded she grow out her hair. She said she
grew out her hair for a couple of months because she
needed the job, but then got to thinking about it. "It's
not right - who cares how long my hair is?" she asked.
She said she found a job at another, more upscale West
Little Rock restaurant that had no problem about her
appearance.
Hudson and Whitney say they're privileged - being out
hasn't been as difficult for them, something they credit
in part to their supportive families.
"My parents used to joke that they knew I was
'different' when I asked for a basketball and a soccer
ball when I was three," said Hudson. Hudson and her
brother were adopted when she was two. Their adoptive
father is a Methodist minister, and Hudson describes him
as the most open-minded person she's ever met.
While Hudson knew she was gay from an early age, Whitney
dated men until her mid-20's, when she found herself
interested in a female friend.
"I've always been raised to look at the whole person,"
she said. "And it happens that everything I'm looking
for is in a woman." Whitney said that when she came out
to her mother, her mother's concerns centered on how
other people treated homosexuals.
Among their group of friends - who include gay and
straight, liberal and conservative people - a person's
sexual orientation is not an issue.
"I think with our generation and the people below us,
it's not that big of a deal," said Hudson. "I just hope
we can continue to make a difference as we get older,
and not become like our parents, who were so open in the
1960s and then became so closed-minded."
When asked about marriage, Whitney said their only
interest is in the legal protections it offers.
"There's nothing in marriage that we haven't said to
each other already," said Whitney. "But we pool our
money and live in the same house, and legally we're the
same as two people who don't even know each other."
Hudson said there's too much focus on the issue of
sexuality. "Our country has so many problems that we
shouldn't be spending time on this," she said. "When we
look back on this 50 years from now, and it'll be like
segregation is now."
Dr. Karmen Hopkins, 46, knew from an early age that she
was different, but being gay wasn't something that was
talked about. "I knew in junior high school that I would
become a doctor or get a Ph.D. so I wouldn't have to be
a 'Miss,'" she said, sitting in her Hillcrest home, her
feet tucked beneath her. "I just knew somehow that I was
never going to get married."
A longhaired gray cat lounges on the glass-topped coffee
table. Underneath the table are stacks of medical
journals and newsmagazines. A second cat, a calico,
curls up on the couch next to Hopkins.
In college, she and a female friend fell in love,
although they couldn't admit it to themselves, she said.
"We were so naïve. We thought we couldn't possibly be
lesbians because we didn't want to be men or dress like
men or live on either coast," she said.
Hopkins was able to come to terms with her sexual
orientation through therapy, she said. She came finally
came out to friends and family in the mid-1980s. "Some
people basically shut me out," she said. "But I was
lucky - I've had friends who've lost their families."
Hopkins said she hasn't been harassed or discriminated
against, but she declined to name the hospital at which
se works, "just in case someone decides to start a
campaign" to protest.
It's sometimes uncomfortable to see how much publicity
the gay marriage debate is getting in the news media,
she said. "They see us as a stereotype, not as
individual people," she said.
With all the scrutiny, she said it's sometimes tempting
to hide who she is, especially since it's easy to blend
in with the crowd. "You have to be careful and try very
hard not to censor yourself," she said.
Currently single, Hopkins said she's happy with her
life. While she doesn't discount the possibility of a
long-term relationship, she's not actively looking. She
said she doesn't have much free time because of the long
hours she works, but she enjoys reading and going out
with friends. "How I love in my life is who I am, but
it's just one part of me," she said.
Gay Arkansans are not just couples, by the way. They are
also parents, part of the so-called "gayby boom." In
Arkansas, single-person adoptions of children are legal,
no matter what the adoptive parent's sexual orientation.
For same-sex partners to adopt together or for a gay
person to adopt the biological child of their partner,
the couples must go to a state that allows those
adoptions, said family law attorney Gary Sullivan. The
issue of whether Arkansas will recognize these adoptions
has not been tested. Sullivan's first child, carried
through a surrogate mother, is due in August. He and his
partner have been together for three years.
Attorney David Ivers and his partner have been together
for over six years, and are fathers of three-year old
twins, a boy and a girl. The children were carried by a
surrogate mother; Ivers is their biological father.
The children call Ivers "Daddy" and his partner is
"Poppy."
The kids at preschool don't have a problem with their
friends having a Poppy. In fact, Poppy is kind of a
celebrity, Ivers said. When the children sing songs
about mothers and fathers, their daughter makes sure
everyone sings a round for Poppy.
Like all fathers, he is concerned about their future,
and how discrimination against gay people will affect
them, whether they are gay or straight.
"My children are still too young to understand what's
going on," he said. "I'm glad they don't have to see and
hear their parents vilified like that."
The consolation is that as the children of gay parents
and their friends grow up, they will be less likely to
share the intolerance of the past generation, he said.
"To most young people, homosexuality isn't even an
issue," he said. "Future generations will look back on
this time and history will look harshly upon those who
want to discriminate against us."
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