Don’t Depict, Don’t Tell
This article showcases both the importance and the limits of law in advancing the cause of equality. A Utah newspaper refuses to show pictures of a gay male couple — no, wait, they don’t want to include the couple at all — in the wedding announcement section.
Even though the couple was validly married in California, and paid the fee to have the announcement included, Spectrum publisher Donnie Welch decided that, since Utah doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, the paper’s (heretofore unknown) policy was to reject such announcements. (Do they research all announcements to ensure compliance with state law? My guess is no.) And I’ll be interested to see how the parent newspaper, the Gannett chain, responds. (Thus far, no comment has been forthcoming.) Will (can?) they overrule Welch?
I don’t see legal recourse here. You likely won’t be surprised to learn that Utah doesn’t have a law protecting gays against discrimination, so that’s out. And of course Welch is right that same-sex couples can’t marry in Utah. An antidiscrimination law would take care of this mess, tidily. As I wrote here, I wouldn’t favor a religious (or other) exemption to such a law; if anything, this kind of case shows how religion could potentially be used both as subterfuge and as litigation deterrent.
Beyond the law, there’s the larger “teaching moment” in both the couples’ effort and the paper’s response. One member of the couple, Spencer Jones (raised as a Mormon), had this to say:
I’ve thought a lot about the gay and lesbian kids who are surely all over the place in southern Utah, and maybe it’s gratuitous on my part, but they need to see this announcement in the paper. When I was a kid … I would have loved to have seen a picture of two guys having their life together celebrated in the paper.
The newspaper’s lesson? Not all the news is fit to print. The societally enforced closet is still closed for business, but it’s being pried open; according to this story, about 1,000 papers now accept wedding announcements from same-sex couples.
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