June 2, 2014 • 43 mins
With same-sex marriage increasingly becoming legal around the world, Cristen and Caroline celebrate with a look at how gay weddings combine somethings old and new.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And a while back we talked
about the evolution of same sex marriage in the US.
So far, seventeen states as of the recording of this
(00:23):
podcast have legalized same sex marriage. But we want to
continue highlighting this progress and celebrating it by talking this
time around about gay weddings. Yeah, because gay weddings in
and of themselves, the fact that they even exist is
a huge milestone. It's a huge deal. But also, I mean,
(00:45):
it's just it's wedding season, you guys. It's June, not
when people get married. It's spring. Things are blooming. Love
is in the air. Love of all kinds, Love of
all kinds. So let's first do a quick rundown on
the solution of same sex marriage legally speaking, in the
US and around the world. That's really started. The dominos
(01:07):
really began to fall in December two thousand and ten,
when the US Congress repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell after
a Pentagon report concluded but surprise, surprise, gay service members
hold no threat to the Armed forces, abilities or effectiveness right,
and on the heels of that, well, I don't know
if you can say it's on the heels of considering.
(01:27):
It was three years later, but in June, the Supreme
Court struck down the Defensive Marriage Act, or DOMA, and
they ruled in Windsor versus the United States that section
three of DOMA, which refresher with the n law that
denied legally married same sex couples the protections and responsibilities
of marriage, was on constitutional In the same breath, Essentially,
(01:50):
the Supreme Court also stuck a stick of dynamite in
Proposition eight, basically restoring the rights of gay people in
California to marry. And so that sort of open the floodgates.
People started looking around each other going like, oh, well,
we should probably, you know, give people civil rights. So,
as Kristen said, seventeen states as of this recording have
legalized gay marriage, led by Massachusetts in two thousand four.
(02:14):
But if we look worldwide, the Netherlands was at the
forefront back in two thousand one, and sixteen countries now
allow same sex couples to marry nationwide, while two others,
including the US and Mexico, have just regional provisions allowing it.
And so while in the United States, clearly there's still
a lot of progress to be made because this is
(02:34):
now a state by state battle, but it does seem
that the chips are falling at an accelerated pace. And
I suspect that gay marriage is going to be the
law of the land in five years. Calling an idealist,
but I honestly believe that this is a change that
is legitimately sweeping the nation. Right. Well, I mean if
(02:55):
you just think about people in our generation and younger especially,
I mean, really nobody thinks that gay marriage is a
huge deal that will harm the marriages of other people.
I mean, statistically speaking, our generation and younger is like,
let and live and let live. Let people get married,
(03:16):
and you know what comes with getting married. Kristen Weddings,
Planning a wedding, I personally would find planning a wedding overwhelming,
but I have always had the right built in to
have a wedding. Yeah, and to you know, almost have
the privilege of being annoyed with the idea of like
(03:38):
a wedding, Am I going to have to do that
one day? Yeah? This is a this is a new
territory though for same sex couples who are getting married.
And this episode is a bit of an intersection between
other topics that we've talked about before surrounding weddings, marriage,
same sex, civil rights, things like that, and so there
(04:00):
will be some repeat information, but it's just been interesting
to see how gay weddings are being treated and publicized
as both something old and something new right and in
a stroke of incredible timing, the not which is actually
part of what Slate writer Katherine Goldstein in June called
(04:22):
the wedding industrial complex. They started us off with a
really kind of thorough, very long Q and A type
of thing that was basically a how to addition for
gay and lesbian couples. It was essentially the guts. The
guts were the same of each issue, but there was
one geared towards gay grooms and one geared towards lesbian brides,
(04:45):
and um, there were thirty five q and a's in there,
like everything from you know, should I give an engagement ring?
To who should we invite? And Katherine Goldstein was talking
about how like, yes, there were some really like critical,
well good hard hitting questions and answers in there, but
really this is just part of the same old junk that,
(05:06):
like straight couples have had to deal with forever. Right.
I remember when this happened. I was listening to one
of my favorite podcasts, Throwing Shade, and the gay host
Brian Sofie just ripped into this not his and hers
gay wedding special basically because he found it insulting that
(05:30):
it was, you know, these questions about how do we
have a wedding if we are two men instead of
a man and a woman. And I think that the
Knots intentions were pretty pure, aside from, you know, the
capitalistic things of oh well, if you're looking for his
and his cake topper as well, you can go to
one of our sponsors. But uh, but there were some
(05:54):
legitimate questions in that Q and A in terms of, okay,
well do we invite family members who have not been
accepting of our union, things like that, But then also
apparently lots of suggestions of drag queen entertainment, to which
Brian Sofie again raised his eyebrow. Well, also, the first
(06:14):
dance song suggestions were questionable. Lots of Whitney Houston, right, yeah,
side note, I love Whitney Houston. But first dance. I
don't know, but anyway, so now, I mean, I think
it's great that we do have a ton of how
to guides etiquette advice. There's even uh this this group
called the Gay Wedding Institute that's been around for several
(06:36):
years to sort of advise both actual same sex couples
but also to sort of advise the media and vendors
themselves on how to handle same sex weddings and civil
unions and that kind of stuff. And you know, say
what you will about the advice being sappy, crap or whatever,
but like the fact that it's out there, I think
(06:59):
is so wonderful. The fact that people are getting the
same kind of treatment as far as like, hey, you
want advice on having an awesome wedding, Well here here's
some advice. Here's a way to spend a lot of
money one in one day. Um but there, but there
are some The thing that jumps out over and over
again in media coverage of gay weddings is this idea
(07:19):
that well, they are basically taking this age old institution
and reinvigorating it with their own traditions, because unlike you
and I to assist gender heterosexual women who will be
faced with questions of, well, are we that cool with
a guy proposing? Do we really want a diamond? Are
(07:41):
we going to take his name? All of those questions
that come up over and over again. Whereas when you
have two women are two men, it's more of a
blank slate issue. And so there was a two thousand
thirteen survey conducted by the not and the Advocate and
they pulled LGBT and straight Americans to compare and contrast
how we do our weddings, and there were some differences
(08:05):
that popped out, starting with popping the question yeah. So
they asked about, you know, whether your proposal was traditional
along the lines of, you know, getting down on one knee,
pulling out the ring in the little velveteen box, and
same sex couples reported that they were less likely to
have had a formal proposal fifty eight percent compared with
(08:26):
of opposite sex couples who had a traditional one. And
when it comes to, you know, the asking for his
or her hand in marriage, you know, we think of
that as a very common thing that a groom to
be would do, asking his future wife's father for permission
to marry her. Only nineteen percent of same sex couples
said that they approached the parents of their spouse to be,
(08:50):
whereas sixty of straight couples said that they did that. Now,
when it comes to actually planning the wedding, the survey
also found that of same sex couples evenly split the
planning duties, compared to just nine of straight couples, to
which I say, hey, who's that pulling their weight around here?
Straight couples, what's going on? Well, I would imagine in
(09:11):
both gay and straight couples all over the place, there
are plenty of people who are in couples being like
you get out of here. Yeah, I'm taking this over.
Someone probably does end up being more of the event manager.
And let me just tell you, Caroline that if that
day ever comes for me, oh I hope it's him,
(09:31):
I do not want to be me well, but I
guess it depends. And I mean not to get off
on a tangent, but you know, gay or straight, if
you're just planning on having a big party, I'd much
rather have just have like a huge party rather than
plan some big formal affair. But then I guess, regardless,
you've got to worry about the venue. But anyway, but anyway, Well,
let's just plan our own perfect wedding, Caroline. And when
(09:52):
it comes to putting the bill, six percent of gay
couples reported paying for their own weddings versus of opposite
sex couples, and that might be why on average, gay
weddings usually cost quite a bit less. The average cost
of a straight wedding in the United States right now
is twenty seven thousand tears. What that one buys you,
(10:17):
it's probably a lot of headache medicine to get through
the fact that you're spending. However, and this was I
think this is New York specific, but in New York
at least same sex couples spend an average nine thousand,
thirty nine dollars on their weddings. So it could be
partially due to the fact that, hey, if they are
responsible for paying for this whole shin dig, then maybe
(10:40):
they're mining their money a little bit differently and instead
of if it's a parent or somebody else footing the bill. Yeah, well, um,
as far as you know, whether it's a big fancy
affair or not. Of same sex couples versus six of
straight couples reported that their nuptials were cash just casual
get together and along those same lines. So I mean
(11:01):
you mentioned whether or not parents are footing the bill
for the wedding, whether or not someone is asking parents
permission to pop a question. Gay couples are also less
likely to be escorted down the aisle by a family
member or incorporate religious vows. So it really does seem
like in a lot of different ways, they are making
(11:22):
this tradition their own. They're not saying, well, we have
to do things like all these brilliant straight people have
been doing it for forever. Right, Yeah, they are I
mean following their own path, creating their own path, and
not feeling that pressure that so many straight couples I
assume uh feel to create a wedding that just like
their sister had or just like their mother had. Yeah,
(11:42):
I think there is a lot. There's so much baggage
that goes on with the appropriate in quotes in the
same way that I had brilliant straight people in quotes
planning of a wedding up to this issue of changing
one's last name. Right, six that of same sex couples
polled said that they kept their distinct last names, versus
(12:04):
seventy of straight brides who took their husbands. And honestly,
I would have thought the percentage for straight couples would
have been higher, that more women would have been taking
their husband's name. But yeah, I mean I think that
more women are keeping their name these days, but yeah,
I'm surprised that it's not even a little bit higher too.
And according to a New York Times article about this,
(12:25):
apparently the whole name changed thing is more common among lesbians.
But not surprisingly, this doesn't have to do with old
school ideas about chivalry and a woman's rightful place subservient
to her husband, but rather, in the words of one
lesbian bride of quote, being able to change their name
(12:47):
is a way of having their home state recognize their marriage. Yeah. Um, So,
backing up just a minute to what Kristen was talking
about about, like the old tradition of chivalry. It's something
that I read and had to read like three times
because I couldn't believe. I mean, I can't believe it,
but anyway, I'll just say it. Okay. So you know,
changing your name is an ancient tradition. It dates back
(13:07):
to the common law doctrine of coverture, when a bride
assumed her husband's name and legal identity, and in what
is called civil death, ceased to exist as a separate
legal person, which I'm just like, ceased to civil death. What.
And so the fact that in same sex weddings you
(13:30):
don't have that same gender norm, traditional genderal baggage, those
those dividing lines, I think that really opens people up
to being able to make a more informed, egalitarian, educated choice,
like no, we're going to change our names to this
because of this. For instance, in one of these stories
(13:50):
I can't remember if it was in the New York
Times for the Atlantic, that was talking to a lesbian couple.
One half of the couple was a very tall woman
and she wanted to get rid of her name, her
last name which was like kind of German sounding or something,
and her wife to be her last name was teeny. Yeah,
she said that there was no way that she was
going to take on the last name teeny and simply
(14:13):
set herself up for the lifetime of jokes after that.
But I have a feeling too that the that sort
of name changing decision is also going to be more
influenced by whether or not their kids involved, and it's
probably not as big of a deal if both parties
don't elect to change their names at all, right, or
hyphen a or whatever, because they're not really bound, Like
(14:36):
we said, they're not really bound by the same etiquette
pressure that a lot of straight couples find themselves under.
And it is that whole realm of etiquette though, which
some people argue, is what is making the introduction of
the idea of gay marriage to a lot of straight
people more almost more palatable to people who otherwise wouldn't
have agreed with it. Uh. Stephen Petro answers questions about
(15:00):
GBT etiquette wedding etiquette for The New York Times, and
he addressed this whole topic of gay weddings in a
June column by way of answering a question about a
gift registry. And basically this couple was like, oh, you know,
we're having a second wedding. You know, is it tacky
(15:20):
to register for gifts and ask our friends to get
us stuff? So that's like the surface question, that's a
good etiquette question. But the reality when you dive under
what that question was, the whole reason these people were
having a second wedding is because when they had originally
married in two thousand four, their wedding in California had
been annulled. Their marriage had been annulled by the state.
And so it's not like they're just having a second
(15:42):
wedding for kicks. They're getting married in a like a second, real,
actual wedding to be spouses and so um. Petro was
basically using that etiquette question to talk about how what
like a watershed moment we find ourselves in that the
who are normally like so outside the bounds of typical
(16:02):
etiquette and and whatever, are asking these questions and they
tend to have almost like a deeper meaning. Yeah. I
had never really thought of etiquette in this more significant
kind of way, because typically, if I think of etiquette,
it sounds very stodgy to me. It's going to be
more of the blue haired grandma in the corner who
(16:23):
might not want anything to do with this crazy new
thing called gay weddings. But Petro makes a great point
about how the rise of etiquette, that there have been
these peaks in etiquette throughout the twentieth century now the
twenty one century, related correlated to giant social changes happening.
(16:44):
So he writes, for instance, that it was no coincidence
that the first edition of Emily Post Etiquette, which came
out in was published soon after the bloodshed and social
upheaval of World War One. Yeah, and while we're not
saying that the bloodshed of role where one has anything
to do with gay weddings, what we are trying to say,
and what Petro is is stressing, is that it's almost
(17:06):
like etiquette rules, you're able to introduce something new and
different through traditional channels. Essentially you're you're calming people down
about some social upheaval, some social change. I mean, it's
happening relatively quickly, I would say, and I'm sure there
are a lot of social anxieties out there. But when
you're just talking about two men or two women trying
(17:27):
to figure out a gift registry, like that's universal. You know,
that's a universal wedding question. Well, and that's a whole
That's the whole thing that comes up also in these
media reports or trend stories, and I hate that they're
even trend stories because it's here to stay on gay
marriage is the fact that it is treated a lot
as a novelty, which is a little unfortunate because at
(17:50):
the end of the day, this is a question about
two people getting married, and unless we can put them
in the category of other, I'm like, oh, well, you
need your own set of rules because you're the special
case over here. I think we'll see maybe some of
that eroding as we progress into this just being a
normal part of our society. I think we will. I
(18:10):
think we totally will. I think we're at a stage
right now where a lot of people have to say
gay wedding or straight wedding or gay wedding etiquette or whatever.
But I do think we are getting closer to a
time where it's just like wedding etiquette, don't invite family
members who don't support you, regardless of who you're marrying exactly.
And we're seeing that evidence of that in the publication
(18:33):
of wedding announcements in newspapers. In two thousand eight, Glad
looked at how many papers across the country have policies
that that published same sex wedding announcements, And I think
we're starting to see evidence of that in wedding announcements
in newspapers. So in two thousand two, The New York
Times began opening up its wedding pages to LGBT couples,
(18:57):
And in two thousand and eight, GLAD looked at how
that had had a ripple effect to other newspapers around
the country and found that and I'm sure the number
has gone up since then. It found that daily newspapers
in the US except wedding or commitment ceremony announcements for
same sex couples. Yeah, and um, I mean, as they should.
(19:19):
But you can imagine. I mean, I'm someone who worked
at a daily newspaper in not the most progressive town,
so you know, I can only I can only imagine
some of the newsroom discussions or whatever. But despite the
progress that a lot of daily newspapers have shown, there
have been several articles in the past couple of years
(19:39):
highlighting the newspapers that are refusing to publish them. For instance, um,
back in Fall, the tech Sarcanic Gazette in Texas refused
to publish the announcement from Michelle Cooks and Patricia Wrightner
because they cited this policy that the appending nuptials have
to be recognized in the state in which the paper circulates.
(20:00):
It sounded like a whole like overproduced excuse just to
not run it, exactly making up a rule in order
to be able to say no. And unfortunately, that's not
the only example of discrimination that same sex couples might
be facing in the process of planning a wedding. And
we're going to highlight some of those instances when we
(20:21):
come right back from a quick break. So when we
left off, we had mentioned that hooray, so many newspapers
around the country are now publishing same sex wedding announcements
and that's fantastic. Four issues of visibility, etcetera. But there
(20:41):
are still bigoted pockets of the United States that aren't
so keen on assisting with gay weddings. Yeah, one that
really uh stuck out to me in the news was
the whole cake thing. Remember the whole cake thing, The
whole cake thing, that whole cake thing. In December, a
(21:02):
judge ordered Colorado baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake Shop
in Denver to stop discriminating against gay couples or face fines.
The judge said that he violated the law when he
turned a couple away in twelve simply for being gay
and wanting to be married, and the judge in that
case cited state law that prohibits businesses from refusing service
(21:22):
based on race, sex, marital status, or sexual orientation. Writing
at first Blush, it may seem reasonable that a private
business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses.
This view, however, fails to take into account the cost
of society and the hurt caused of persons who are
denied service simply because of who they are. Now. Of course,
(21:43):
this angered some, particularly religious conservatives, because Jack Phillips the Baker,
said that it was due to his Christian beliefs that
he would bake any other kind of cake. He said
that he would even bake a wedding cake for a
dog wedding. He simply would not bake a cake for
a gay marriage. If it had just been um, a
(22:04):
gay birthday party, still fine, But because of his beliefs
about the sanctity, the Christian sanctity of marriage, it wasn't okay.
And so there were some you know, conservative politicians who
came out saying, this is an overreach of you know,
judicial power, tamping down on our religious freedoms. And the
tangential debates from there that emerged, one of which we
(22:26):
read over at The Atlantic was really interesting because at
one point gay commentator Andrew Sullivan weighed in, saying, you
know what, somebody doesn't want to bake me a cake
for my gay wedding, that's totally fine. It seems like
at this point the number of people who are are
so staunchly against this are are so small and and
(22:49):
becoming so clearly um out of touch with their views
and out numbered and outnumbered that it's almost like it's
not worth the effort. But at the same time, still,
I'm sure gay couples who are planning weddings say, you
know what, actually, it is completely worth the effort because
we should be able to and be granted the rights
(23:09):
to plan a wedding with the same kind of freedom
that everybody else does. Yeah, everybody likes cake. Everybody likes
everybody likes cake. Everybody Okay, and you know what, everybody
likes to have photographers at their wedding too. But we
have we've had some problems with photographers. Um Elaine Photography
studio co owner Elaine Huguenin refused to photograph a same
(23:33):
sex couple, saying that it would violate her religious beliefs
similar to the cake baker, and claiming that she's protected
under the First Amendment. But in April, the Supreme Court
rejected an appeal from her studio, letting the New Mexico
High Court ruling stand that she was discriminating. And then
(23:53):
we also have similar things happening with florists. In March,
Baronel Stutsman, a flower shop owner, refused to supply flowers
for a couple in Washington State, and Stutsman is being
sued by the couple and the state Attorney General's office
for violating the consumer protection laws similar to the cake incident,
(24:14):
where basically their laws saying, hey, guess what, it's great
that you own a business can't really discriminate based on uh,
someone's race, sexual orientation, ability, et cetera. And it's good
that those laws are in place because those laws were
probably initially enacted to prevent racial discrimination. Let's continue forging
(24:37):
forward in our quest for civil rights for everyone, shall we? Absolutely?
And along those same lines, we have this trend again.
I don't like to use the word trend, but you
do have this kind of trend popping up of a
lot of straight couples saying either I'm not gonna get
married until my gay friends can get married, or they're
(24:57):
trying to incorporate something into their actual same sex wedding
ceremony to indicate to all of their guests that they
support same sex marriage and want you to support it too.
And I am curious though, on this particular issue, to
know what LGBT listeners think about this thing of straight
allies sort of doing our own like standing with you
(25:19):
refusing to get married, or maybe we're just gonna go
ahead and get married, but we're gonna acknowledge the fact
but not everybody can get married, Like is it does
it feel disingenuous? Yeah? That's something that I'm wondering too,
because I know a couple who dated for years and
I mean they're super live and they absolutely said, like
(25:39):
we are not there's no way we are getting married
until everyone can get married. And then, of course, a
couple of years ago they got married. And so I'm
just wondering, like does that just make it seem like, God,
do you guys just shut up? And you know, like,
I am curious to what our is that? Yeah, is
that the appropriate way to acknowledge our heteronormat of privilege?
(26:01):
You know, to put it in really stodgy sounding terms?
I don't know. I mean I feel like it's a
it's probably coming from a good place. Yeah, yeah, I yes,
I believe it is too. I don't like believe it's
an attention getting thing, but yeah, you have to wonder
about it. One one example that I do like, um
is from Anne Hathaway's wedding to Adam Schulman, her boyfriend
(26:22):
and Hathaway the actors in case I don't know you're
under a rock. But she authorized the sale of her
wedding pictures to benefit Freedom to Marry, which is an
advocate group, as well as three other charities, and a
couple of years ago, Freedom to Marry created its own
marital registry and since then the majority of donations they've
received have come from heterosexual weddings. Yeah, and another. Straight
(26:45):
couples have incorporated things like reading from court decisions on
same sex marriage in their ceremony, or others might hand
out lapel pins with the white Not logo, which is
produced by an LGBT advocacy organization, White Not Dot Org,
while others might ask us to sign petitions or open
letters in support of gay marriage. So basically, but but
(27:07):
isn't that again a little bit of let's have our
cake and eat it too at our wedding, literally a
little bit. I don't know. I don't know how I
feel about it entirely because obviously I don't not support it.
But at the same time, I think, is is this
the best way to push push this forward? I don't know.
(27:28):
I don't know either. I mean maybe if it gets
your some of your more conservative family members at least
thinking about it, that's a good point. I mean, yeah,
I don't I don't know. Yeah. LGBT listeners please advise.
Because then there's also the whole thing of celebrity couples
such as Brad and Angelina right saying they're not going
(27:50):
to get married at all. Charlie Thorna said the same thing.
dNaM has said that she and that guy with the
big glasses who makes those pop songs won't get married
until everyone can get married. Lena Dunham is just the
most recent and a string of people. Although you know,
like it's the same thing, does it come off as
disingenuous because Brad Pitt has also come out and said that,
(28:11):
you know, it's up to our kids. If our kids
really want us to get married and it's important to them,
then we will again, I think all of us just
underscores the fact that it's incredible that we have the
choice to do that and some people, a lot of
people don't have the choice. You know. That just highlights
how there's still such a disparity. Yeah, and so on
(28:34):
the one hand, anything that can bring attention to that
disparity is positive. However, you know, I feel like there's
some crotchety old people out there looking at Lena Dunham
and Angelina and shaking their fist and being like the
dumb kids. You just have to wonder like, is it effective,
is it genuine? Is it doing what they wanted to do?
But it's not bad that they're doing it exactly. Yeah,
(28:56):
definitely not bad that they're doing it. Um. Now, finally
we got to talk of let's get down to brass
tacks when it comes to weddings. If you want to
really have an argument about, you know, kind of stripped
of politics, you just talk about money. Let's just talk
about the economics of gay marriage, because you know what,
last time I checked, the U. S has this massive deficit. Okay,
(29:18):
we could use some extra cash in the coffers. And
one way to do that is to legalize a gay marriage. Yeah,
trust me. Kristen checks the deficit every day. So last
time she checked means like two minutes ago. I am
fun at parties on her phone. Yeah. But no, it
turns out you guys lo and behold. Granting people their
civil rights can have an impact on the economy. Um.
(29:39):
So if we look Predoma, if we go back before
the Defensive Marriage Act was destroyed. Back in two thousand nine,
the New York Times reported that same sex couple stood
to lose as much as five grand over a lifetime
because they couldn't marry and therefore get benefits like spousal
health insurance and other off and that led to more
(30:02):
same sex couples being more likely to be uninsured. And
then that can snowball into people who are uninsured avoiding
preventive care and winding up costing everybody when they go
to the emergency room. It's a whole mess when people
can't get spousal benefits. So economist Lee Badgett, writing for
PBS in March, was citing her research and that from
(30:24):
the Congressional Budget Office, and she was saying that state
and federal budgets will actually get a positive boost if
gay couples are allowed to marry. She talks about any
additional state and federal spending on benefits, so once you're
a spouse and you can receive spousal benefits would be
outweighed by savings from lower cash assistance and medicaid spending.
(30:45):
Badgets talking about all of these good, give and take
economic aspects of allowing gay people to marry. She also
talks about, now remember this is pre damas, she's also
talking about how there'd probably be an increase in tax revenue.
She talks about how all of a sudden, you've got
this basically like pent up pot, what wedding ready population
(31:06):
who's been unable to marry this whole time, and suddenly
you're going to have like the floodgates open and thousands
of excited couples can start finally planning a quote unquote
real wedding. And she said that would generate at least
one point five billion dollars by her calculations, and spending
on things like flowers, cakes, fans, meals, photographers, hotels, tourism, suits, gowns,
(31:29):
and not to mention those really expensive like bridle or
groom party outfits can I just mention, though, Caroline, that
when you said this pent up group of people ready
to get married, I just envisioned a bunch of brides
and grooms leaping out of a crock pot simmering. I
picture I picture them at like the start line of
(31:51):
a race, like, let us freaking get married. And then
her last point one of when one of Badgett's other
points was that there are a ton of employers who, really,
you know, they don't care, like have a wedding, don't
have a wedding, I don't care. But there are a
lot of employers big and small out there who say,
we just want to recruit and retain the best people.
And if making our employees better means making them happy,
(32:14):
and if making them happy means letting them get married,
then freaking let them get married. Uh. Companies like Google, Apple, Viacom, Nike,
all these people are saying, we just want our LGBT
employees to actually be able to focus on their jobs
and being really super creative and awesome, not dealing with
the whole issue of stigma and inequality that creates problems
and stress on their families. Yeah, and so if you
(32:36):
look at New York as an example, where gay marriage
was legalized in two thousand eleven, the state has seen
an economic ripple effect from same sex marriage. This was
reported on by CNN in July, and it found that
between things like marriage license fees, local celebrations, and wedding
(32:57):
related purchases, New York The's economy added two million dollars
to its bottom line, right, and the city collected sixteen
million dollars in tax revenue from same sex marriages during
that period. And remember this is just in a year
from when it was legalized in New York to the
article being written in July. But weddings, not not just
(33:20):
like getting your license, not just you know, having a
little local dinner party to celebrate. Weddings brought the biggest
economic boost to New York City, with about sixty seven
percent of same sex couples who got married in the
city holding wedding receptions at venues in the city like hotels, restaurants,
all that stuff throughout New York City. But then that
also brings up my more cynical side caroline of saying, well,
(33:42):
is this only just feeding the wedding industrial complex? I
think I'm just terrified of ever being at a point
in my life where I'm expected to spend twenty seven
thousand dollars on one day. I just don't know if
I can do it now, the y O. B Man.
So for a more recent example, let's look at Utah, which,
at the time of us recording this podcast is basically
(34:05):
on the legal precipice of same sex marriage being allowed,
and the u c l A. Based Williams Institute found
that legalizing same sex marriage could generate in Utah fifteen
point five million dollars in wedding spending in more than
one million dollars in sales tax revenue for Utah's economy
in just the first three years, And on top of that,
(34:27):
it could also generate two d sixty eight jobs in
the tourism and hospitality sector. Yeah, so, I mean, weddings
in general are kind of a shot in the arm
for state economies. Just imagine though, if you have like
this big rush of people being like we could have weddings. Now,
who's to say that it won't like eventually kind of
(34:48):
level off in plateau. But hey, states, if you're if
you're looking to make some money and also grant people's
civil rights. Yeah, I mean, because I'm just saying that
the whole economic argument is a good one to up
in your back pocket when you're talking to people who
aren't so on board with the idea of same sex marriage,
because it's hard to argue with saying, well, you know this,
this would generate massive amounts of money. Everybody likes money, right,
(35:12):
everybody likes money. Um. But so, looking to a gallop
pole that was conducted on us spending from January through September,
so sort of straddling pre and post doma um, they
found that married Americans spend more than those in any
(35:32):
other marital status category across age groups. So there's another argument.
When you're married, you spend more money. Americans who have
never married spend significantly less, particularly for those people who
were under fifty, suggesting that if the marriage rate increases
across the country, overall spending may increase and benefit our economy.
(35:55):
Yet another reason why extending civil rights to all is
a good idea, right because think about it, if you're
pooling two incomes, basically, even if you have separate bank accounts, um,
you are more likely to to actually spend on things.
Maybe fix up your house, fix up your yards, go on. Vacation,
who knows, who knows. The possibilities really are endless for
(36:16):
how you could spend your money. So what do we
have to say with all of this, Caroline, Gay weddings happening,
Old traditions meet new traditions. Yeah, I think, Um, on
the one hand, it must be nice to not have
that traditional baggage of like we have to do weddings
(36:36):
this one way. On the other hand, it's unfortunate that
that freedom stems from the fact that these folks have
never been allowed to marry and so they haven't had
traditions in place already. But um, you know, if if
anyone out there wants to invite me to your, uh,
(36:57):
to your same sex wedding, it sounds like it would
be a lot of fun judging by the statistics we
have presented here. Well, you know what, weddings are usually fun.
I like going to weddings. Personally, I don't want to
plan one, but I enjoy going if there's an it depends.
I've been to some good ones and I've been to
some if well, And we're going to talk about that
on the next episode of Stuff I've Never told you.
(37:18):
With our interview with Jen Dahl, who wrote an entire
memoir about going to weddings. Because guess what, folks, whether
you knew it or not, it's weddings week here on
the podcast. But LGBT listeners, we especially want to hear
from you on this, those who have gotten married. Have
you gone through the whole gay wedding planning and encountered
any of the things that we were talking about. Are
(37:39):
you tired of being treated as a trend piece in
the wedding section in the New York Times. Do you
think that all this is positive and good and we
are accelerating in the right direction. Yeah, I do think.
Let me reiterate, I do think that it is on
the horizon that we're getting to a place where there
isn't a gay wedding and a straight wedding. And I
(37:59):
mean like living like I live in I live in
midtown Atlanta, for instance, And the fact that you the
fact that anyone would walk into a florist and would
not be served because they are gay, Uh, just like
wouldn't it just wouldn't happen, not in not where I live.
And so but I understand that Atlanta is just a pocket, Yeah,
(38:21):
a pocket, a special little blue pocket um in the
red jeans of Georgia. Yeah, still still a lot of
progress to be made, So LGBT listeners, we especially want
to hear from you on this topic. What has been
your experience with weddings? Are you hoping to plan one
one day once same sex marriage becomes legal in your
state or wherever you live. Have you planned one, and
(38:42):
if so, what was it like? Please share all the
details with us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com is where you can send your emails. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or send us
a Facebook message, and we've got a couple of Facebook
messages to share with you right now. So I've got
(39:03):
an email here from David, subject line that shaming in
the gay community, and this is in response to our
episode the body shame Epidemic. He writes, I've been a
fat man my whole life. It hasn't been an easy time,
but I'm slowly coming to grips with bad acceptance. By this,
I mean, instead of focusing on the scale number, I'm
trying to live a life that is happy, is being
(39:23):
healthy and being loving. I'm lucky enough to have found
a man who married me. Hey, speaking of gay weddings
because I was fat, not in spite of it. This
leads me to my story. When I was first exploring
coming out, I attempted to go to a gay bar
in my college town. I say attempted because in the
parking lot a group of rather nice looking men cat
called over to me. They said, hey, Patty, there isn't
(39:46):
anything in there for you. No one will even look
at you. It has stayed with me even today. While
there are gay groups that welcome have your men, the
gay community by and large is a vicious place of
fat shaming. One needs only to surface glance at most
a media to see the over obsession with twinks, hotness,
and the like. While the straight community has this too,
it does seem to be a bit more flexible in
(40:07):
terms of allowing heavier members to be in and find love.
Like you mentioned with the sitcom situation, I would like
to think that gay culture and the community is changing,
but there isn't a ton of evidence in that direction.
That being said, I've been with the same wonderful man
for twenty years and have been happily married for five
ever since our state made it legal. So I would
(40:29):
like to hear from other gay listeners about that. Do
you have you witnessed or experienced a similar kind of
more extreme or more acute I should say that shaming
among the LGBT community let us know. Okay, I have
a letter here from Kirsty about our women and gaming episodes. Uh.
(40:49):
She says it reminded me so much of a conversation
between a good guy friend of mine and my husband.
The guy friend, who definitely qualifies as a hardcore gamer,
said that he thinks that so much exposure to video
games has just started his view of women, since they
are always portrayed as helpless princesses that need to be rescued. Thus,
this is the kind of romantic relationship he expects to have. Also,
(41:09):
he thinks it has given him unrealistic expectations of what
women's body should look like, since they are always portrayed well, unrealistically.
My husband's response was that it is complete bs to
blame attitudes about women exclusively on video games, and that
there are plenty of video games that have awesome female
characters if you actually bother to look for them. He
says that Sama's is one of his favorite characters because
(41:31):
she is, in his words, a total badass. She is
super tough and certainly doesn't need any rescuing for the
entire game. Her sex is a non issue, and he
thought it was really cool when she was revealed to
be a woman because it flew in the face of
expectations about action here is It surprised me that you
had only negative things to say about Sammy's on the
podcast is she is so well beloved and better known
for being tough than being sexy. And she says, by
(41:54):
the way, that her husband is currently playing uh Final
Fantasy Third Team, I'd and realize that exists, which has
a really awesome female protagonist, and he does. He said
it doesn't matter to him either way if the character
he's playing is male or female. Is long is the
game is good. So thank you for writing in, Kirsty,
and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom stuff
at how stuff Works dot Com is our email address
(42:17):
and to find all the links to our social media blog, post, videos,
and podcast, there's one place to go, and it's stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works
dot com. Audible dot com is the leading provider of
(42:44):
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up today. That's Audible podcast dot com, slash stuff mom.
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And a while back we talked
about the evolution of same sex marriage in the US.
So far, seventeen states as of the recording of this
(00:23):
podcast have legalized same sex marriage. But we want to
continue highlighting this progress and celebrating it by talking this
time around about gay weddings. Yeah, because gay weddings in
and of themselves, the fact that they even exist is
a huge milestone. It's a huge deal. But also, I mean,
(00:45):
it's just it's wedding season, you guys. It's June, not
when people get married. It's spring. Things are blooming. Love
is in the air. Love of all kinds, Love of
all kinds. So let's first do a quick rundown on
the solution of same sex marriage legally speaking, in the
US and around the world. That's really started. The dominos
(01:07):
really began to fall in December two thousand and ten,
when the US Congress repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell after
a Pentagon report concluded but surprise, surprise, gay service members
hold no threat to the Armed forces, abilities or effectiveness right,
and on the heels of that, well, I don't know
if you can say it's on the heels of considering.
(01:27):
It was three years later, but in June, the Supreme
Court struck down the Defensive Marriage Act, or DOMA, and
they ruled in Windsor versus the United States that section
three of DOMA, which refresher with the n law that
denied legally married same sex couples the protections and responsibilities
of marriage, was on constitutional In the same breath, Essentially,
(01:50):
the Supreme Court also stuck a stick of dynamite in
Proposition eight, basically restoring the rights of gay people in
California to marry. And so that sort of open the floodgates.
People started looking around each other going like, oh, well,
we should probably, you know, give people civil rights. So,
as Kristen said, seventeen states as of this recording have
legalized gay marriage, led by Massachusetts in two thousand four.
(02:14):
But if we look worldwide, the Netherlands was at the
forefront back in two thousand one, and sixteen countries now
allow same sex couples to marry nationwide, while two others,
including the US and Mexico, have just regional provisions allowing it.
And so while in the United States, clearly there's still
a lot of progress to be made because this is
(02:34):
now a state by state battle, but it does seem
that the chips are falling at an accelerated pace. And
I suspect that gay marriage is going to be the
law of the land in five years. Calling an idealist,
but I honestly believe that this is a change that
is legitimately sweeping the nation. Right. Well, I mean if
(02:55):
you just think about people in our generation and younger especially,
I mean, really nobody thinks that gay marriage is a
huge deal that will harm the marriages of other people.
I mean, statistically speaking, our generation and younger is like,
let and live and let live. Let people get married,
(03:16):
and you know what comes with getting married. Kristen Weddings,
Planning a wedding, I personally would find planning a wedding overwhelming,
but I have always had the right built in to
have a wedding. Yeah, and to you know, almost have
the privilege of being annoyed with the idea of like
(03:38):
a wedding, Am I going to have to do that
one day? Yeah? This is a this is a new
territory though for same sex couples who are getting married.
And this episode is a bit of an intersection between
other topics that we've talked about before surrounding weddings, marriage,
same sex, civil rights, things like that, and so there
(04:00):
will be some repeat information, but it's just been interesting
to see how gay weddings are being treated and publicized
as both something old and something new right and in
a stroke of incredible timing, the not which is actually
part of what Slate writer Katherine Goldstein in June called
(04:22):
the wedding industrial complex. They started us off with a
really kind of thorough, very long Q and A type
of thing that was basically a how to addition for
gay and lesbian couples. It was essentially the guts. The
guts were the same of each issue, but there was
one geared towards gay grooms and one geared towards lesbian brides,
(04:45):
and um, there were thirty five q and a's in there,
like everything from you know, should I give an engagement ring?
To who should we invite? And Katherine Goldstein was talking
about how like, yes, there were some really like critical,
well good hard hitting questions and answers in there, but
really this is just part of the same old junk that,
(05:06):
like straight couples have had to deal with forever. Right.
I remember when this happened. I was listening to one
of my favorite podcasts, Throwing Shade, and the gay host
Brian Sofie just ripped into this not his and hers
gay wedding special basically because he found it insulting that
(05:30):
it was, you know, these questions about how do we
have a wedding if we are two men instead of
a man and a woman. And I think that the
Knots intentions were pretty pure, aside from, you know, the
capitalistic things of oh well, if you're looking for his
and his cake topper as well, you can go to
one of our sponsors. But uh, but there were some
(05:54):
legitimate questions in that Q and A in terms of, okay,
well do we invite family members who have not been
accepting of our union, things like that, But then also
apparently lots of suggestions of drag queen entertainment, to which
Brian Sofie again raised his eyebrow. Well, also, the first
(06:14):
dance song suggestions were questionable. Lots of Whitney Houston, right, yeah,
side note, I love Whitney Houston. But first dance. I
don't know, but anyway, so now, I mean, I think
it's great that we do have a ton of how
to guides etiquette advice. There's even uh this this group
called the Gay Wedding Institute that's been around for several
(06:36):
years to sort of advise both actual same sex couples
but also to sort of advise the media and vendors
themselves on how to handle same sex weddings and civil
unions and that kind of stuff. And you know, say
what you will about the advice being sappy, crap or whatever,
but like the fact that it's out there, I think
(06:59):
is so wonderful. The fact that people are getting the
same kind of treatment as far as like, hey, you
want advice on having an awesome wedding, Well here here's
some advice. Here's a way to spend a lot of
money one in one day. Um but there, but there
are some The thing that jumps out over and over
again in media coverage of gay weddings is this idea
(07:19):
that well, they are basically taking this age old institution
and reinvigorating it with their own traditions, because unlike you
and I to assist gender heterosexual women who will be
faced with questions of, well, are we that cool with
a guy proposing? Do we really want a diamond? Are
(07:41):
we going to take his name? All of those questions
that come up over and over again. Whereas when you
have two women are two men, it's more of a
blank slate issue. And so there was a two thousand
thirteen survey conducted by the not and the Advocate and
they pulled LGBT and straight Americans to compare and contrast
how we do our weddings, and there were some differences
(08:05):
that popped out, starting with popping the question yeah. So
they asked about, you know, whether your proposal was traditional
along the lines of, you know, getting down on one knee,
pulling out the ring in the little velveteen box, and
same sex couples reported that they were less likely to
have had a formal proposal fifty eight percent compared with
(08:26):
of opposite sex couples who had a traditional one. And
when it comes to, you know, the asking for his
or her hand in marriage, you know, we think of
that as a very common thing that a groom to
be would do, asking his future wife's father for permission
to marry her. Only nineteen percent of same sex couples
said that they approached the parents of their spouse to be,
(08:50):
whereas sixty of straight couples said that they did that. Now,
when it comes to actually planning the wedding, the survey
also found that of same sex couples evenly split the
planning duties, compared to just nine of straight couples, to
which I say, hey, who's that pulling their weight around here?
Straight couples, what's going on? Well, I would imagine in
(09:11):
both gay and straight couples all over the place, there
are plenty of people who are in couples being like
you get out of here. Yeah, I'm taking this over.
Someone probably does end up being more of the event manager.
And let me just tell you, Caroline that if that
day ever comes for me, oh I hope it's him,
(09:31):
I do not want to be me well, but I
guess it depends. And I mean not to get off
on a tangent, but you know, gay or straight, if
you're just planning on having a big party, I'd much
rather have just have like a huge party rather than
plan some big formal affair. But then I guess, regardless,
you've got to worry about the venue. But anyway, but anyway, Well,
let's just plan our own perfect wedding, Caroline. And when
(09:52):
it comes to putting the bill, six percent of gay
couples reported paying for their own weddings versus of opposite
sex couples, and that might be why on average, gay
weddings usually cost quite a bit less. The average cost
of a straight wedding in the United States right now
is twenty seven thousand tears. What that one buys you,
(10:17):
it's probably a lot of headache medicine to get through
the fact that you're spending. However, and this was I
think this is New York specific, but in New York
at least same sex couples spend an average nine thousand,
thirty nine dollars on their weddings. So it could be
partially due to the fact that, hey, if they are
responsible for paying for this whole shin dig, then maybe
(10:40):
they're mining their money a little bit differently and instead
of if it's a parent or somebody else footing the bill. Yeah, well, um,
as far as you know, whether it's a big fancy
affair or not. Of same sex couples versus six of
straight couples reported that their nuptials were cash just casual
get together and along those same lines. So I mean
(11:01):
you mentioned whether or not parents are footing the bill
for the wedding, whether or not someone is asking parents
permission to pop a question. Gay couples are also less
likely to be escorted down the aisle by a family
member or incorporate religious vows. So it really does seem
like in a lot of different ways, they are making
(11:22):
this tradition their own. They're not saying, well, we have
to do things like all these brilliant straight people have
been doing it for forever. Right, Yeah, they are I
mean following their own path, creating their own path, and
not feeling that pressure that so many straight couples I
assume uh feel to create a wedding that just like
their sister had or just like their mother had. Yeah,
(11:42):
I think there is a lot. There's so much baggage
that goes on with the appropriate in quotes in the
same way that I had brilliant straight people in quotes
planning of a wedding up to this issue of changing
one's last name. Right, six that of same sex couples
polled said that they kept their distinct last names, versus
(12:04):
seventy of straight brides who took their husbands. And honestly,
I would have thought the percentage for straight couples would
have been higher, that more women would have been taking
their husband's name. But yeah, I mean I think that
more women are keeping their name these days, but yeah,
I'm surprised that it's not even a little bit higher too.
And according to a New York Times article about this,
(12:25):
apparently the whole name changed thing is more common among lesbians.
But not surprisingly, this doesn't have to do with old
school ideas about chivalry and a woman's rightful place subservient
to her husband, but rather, in the words of one
lesbian bride of quote, being able to change their name
(12:47):
is a way of having their home state recognize their marriage. Yeah. Um, So,
backing up just a minute to what Kristen was talking
about about, like the old tradition of chivalry. It's something
that I read and had to read like three times
because I couldn't believe. I mean, I can't believe it,
but anyway, I'll just say it. Okay. So you know,
changing your name is an ancient tradition. It dates back
(13:07):
to the common law doctrine of coverture, when a bride
assumed her husband's name and legal identity, and in what
is called civil death, ceased to exist as a separate
legal person, which I'm just like, ceased to civil death. What.
And so the fact that in same sex weddings you
(13:30):
don't have that same gender norm, traditional genderal baggage, those
those dividing lines, I think that really opens people up
to being able to make a more informed, egalitarian, educated choice,
like no, we're going to change our names to this
because of this. For instance, in one of these stories
(13:50):
I can't remember if it was in the New York
Times for the Atlantic, that was talking to a lesbian couple.
One half of the couple was a very tall woman
and she wanted to get rid of her name, her
last name which was like kind of German sounding or something,
and her wife to be her last name was teeny. Yeah,
she said that there was no way that she was
going to take on the last name teeny and simply
(14:13):
set herself up for the lifetime of jokes after that.
But I have a feeling too that the that sort
of name changing decision is also going to be more
influenced by whether or not their kids involved, and it's
probably not as big of a deal if both parties
don't elect to change their names at all, right, or
hyphen a or whatever, because they're not really bound, Like
(14:36):
we said, they're not really bound by the same etiquette
pressure that a lot of straight couples find themselves under.
And it is that whole realm of etiquette though, which
some people argue, is what is making the introduction of
the idea of gay marriage to a lot of straight
people more almost more palatable to people who otherwise wouldn't
have agreed with it. Uh. Stephen Petro answers questions about
(15:00):
GBT etiquette wedding etiquette for The New York Times, and
he addressed this whole topic of gay weddings in a
June column by way of answering a question about a
gift registry. And basically this couple was like, oh, you know,
we're having a second wedding. You know, is it tacky
(15:20):
to register for gifts and ask our friends to get
us stuff? So that's like the surface question, that's a
good etiquette question. But the reality when you dive under
what that question was, the whole reason these people were
having a second wedding is because when they had originally
married in two thousand four, their wedding in California had
been annulled. Their marriage had been annulled by the state.
And so it's not like they're just having a second
(15:42):
wedding for kicks. They're getting married in a like a second, real,
actual wedding to be spouses and so um. Petro was
basically using that etiquette question to talk about how what
like a watershed moment we find ourselves in that the
who are normally like so outside the bounds of typical
(16:02):
etiquette and and whatever, are asking these questions and they
tend to have almost like a deeper meaning. Yeah. I
had never really thought of etiquette in this more significant
kind of way, because typically, if I think of etiquette,
it sounds very stodgy to me. It's going to be
more of the blue haired grandma in the corner who
(16:23):
might not want anything to do with this crazy new
thing called gay weddings. But Petro makes a great point
about how the rise of etiquette, that there have been
these peaks in etiquette throughout the twentieth century now the
twenty one century, related correlated to giant social changes happening.
(16:44):
So he writes, for instance, that it was no coincidence
that the first edition of Emily Post Etiquette, which came
out in was published soon after the bloodshed and social
upheaval of World War One. Yeah, and while we're not
saying that the bloodshed of role where one has anything
to do with gay weddings, what we are trying to say,
and what Petro is is stressing, is that it's almost
(17:06):
like etiquette rules, you're able to introduce something new and
different through traditional channels. Essentially you're you're calming people down
about some social upheaval, some social change. I mean, it's
happening relatively quickly, I would say, and I'm sure there
are a lot of social anxieties out there. But when
you're just talking about two men or two women trying
(17:27):
to figure out a gift registry, like that's universal. You know,
that's a universal wedding question. Well, and that's a whole
That's the whole thing that comes up also in these
media reports or trend stories, and I hate that they're
even trend stories because it's here to stay on gay
marriage is the fact that it is treated a lot
as a novelty, which is a little unfortunate because at
(17:50):
the end of the day, this is a question about
two people getting married, and unless we can put them
in the category of other, I'm like, oh, well, you
need your own set of rules because you're the special
case over here. I think we'll see maybe some of
that eroding as we progress into this just being a
normal part of our society. I think we will. I
(18:10):
think we totally will. I think we're at a stage
right now where a lot of people have to say
gay wedding or straight wedding or gay wedding etiquette or whatever.
But I do think we are getting closer to a
time where it's just like wedding etiquette, don't invite family
members who don't support you, regardless of who you're marrying exactly.
And we're seeing that evidence of that in the publication
(18:33):
of wedding announcements in newspapers. In two thousand eight, Glad
looked at how many papers across the country have policies
that that published same sex wedding announcements, And I think
we're starting to see evidence of that in wedding announcements
in newspapers. So in two thousand two, The New York
Times began opening up its wedding pages to LGBT couples,
(18:57):
And in two thousand and eight, GLAD looked at how
that had had a ripple effect to other newspapers around
the country and found that and I'm sure the number
has gone up since then. It found that daily newspapers
in the US except wedding or commitment ceremony announcements for
same sex couples. Yeah, and um, I mean, as they should.
(19:19):
But you can imagine. I mean, I'm someone who worked
at a daily newspaper in not the most progressive town,
so you know, I can only I can only imagine
some of the newsroom discussions or whatever. But despite the
progress that a lot of daily newspapers have shown, there
have been several articles in the past couple of years
(19:39):
highlighting the newspapers that are refusing to publish them. For instance, um,
back in Fall, the tech Sarcanic Gazette in Texas refused
to publish the announcement from Michelle Cooks and Patricia Wrightner
because they cited this policy that the appending nuptials have
to be recognized in the state in which the paper circulates.
(20:00):
It sounded like a whole like overproduced excuse just to
not run it, exactly making up a rule in order
to be able to say no. And unfortunately, that's not
the only example of discrimination that same sex couples might
be facing in the process of planning a wedding. And
we're going to highlight some of those instances when we
(20:21):
come right back from a quick break. So when we
left off, we had mentioned that hooray, so many newspapers
around the country are now publishing same sex wedding announcements
and that's fantastic. Four issues of visibility, etcetera. But there
(20:41):
are still bigoted pockets of the United States that aren't
so keen on assisting with gay weddings. Yeah, one that
really uh stuck out to me in the news was
the whole cake thing. Remember the whole cake thing, The
whole cake thing, that whole cake thing. In December, a
(21:02):
judge ordered Colorado baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake Shop
in Denver to stop discriminating against gay couples or face fines.
The judge said that he violated the law when he
turned a couple away in twelve simply for being gay
and wanting to be married, and the judge in that
case cited state law that prohibits businesses from refusing service
(21:22):
based on race, sex, marital status, or sexual orientation. Writing
at first Blush, it may seem reasonable that a private
business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses.
This view, however, fails to take into account the cost
of society and the hurt caused of persons who are
denied service simply because of who they are. Now. Of course,
(21:43):
this angered some, particularly religious conservatives, because Jack Phillips the Baker,
said that it was due to his Christian beliefs that
he would bake any other kind of cake. He said
that he would even bake a wedding cake for a
dog wedding. He simply would not bake a cake for
a gay marriage. If it had just been um, a
(22:04):
gay birthday party, still fine, But because of his beliefs
about the sanctity, the Christian sanctity of marriage, it wasn't okay.
And so there were some you know, conservative politicians who
came out saying, this is an overreach of you know,
judicial power, tamping down on our religious freedoms. And the
tangential debates from there that emerged, one of which we
(22:26):
read over at The Atlantic was really interesting because at
one point gay commentator Andrew Sullivan weighed in, saying, you
know what, somebody doesn't want to bake me a cake
for my gay wedding, that's totally fine. It seems like
at this point the number of people who are are
so staunchly against this are are so small and and
(22:49):
becoming so clearly um out of touch with their views
and out numbered and outnumbered that it's almost like it's
not worth the effort. But at the same time, still,
I'm sure gay couples who are planning weddings say, you
know what, actually, it is completely worth the effort because
we should be able to and be granted the rights
(23:09):
to plan a wedding with the same kind of freedom
that everybody else does. Yeah, everybody likes cake. Everybody likes
everybody likes cake. Everybody Okay, and you know what, everybody
likes to have photographers at their wedding too. But we
have we've had some problems with photographers. Um Elaine Photography
studio co owner Elaine Huguenin refused to photograph a same
(23:33):
sex couple, saying that it would violate her religious beliefs
similar to the cake baker, and claiming that she's protected
under the First Amendment. But in April, the Supreme Court
rejected an appeal from her studio, letting the New Mexico
High Court ruling stand that she was discriminating. And then
(23:53):
we also have similar things happening with florists. In March,
Baronel Stutsman, a flower shop owner, refused to supply flowers
for a couple in Washington State, and Stutsman is being
sued by the couple and the state Attorney General's office
for violating the consumer protection laws similar to the cake incident,
(24:14):
where basically their laws saying, hey, guess what, it's great
that you own a business can't really discriminate based on uh,
someone's race, sexual orientation, ability, et cetera. And it's good
that those laws are in place because those laws were
probably initially enacted to prevent racial discrimination. Let's continue forging
(24:37):
forward in our quest for civil rights for everyone, shall we? Absolutely?
And along those same lines, we have this trend again.
I don't like to use the word trend, but you
do have this kind of trend popping up of a
lot of straight couples saying either I'm not gonna get
married until my gay friends can get married, or they're
(24:57):
trying to incorporate something into their actual same sex wedding
ceremony to indicate to all of their guests that they
support same sex marriage and want you to support it too.
And I am curious though, on this particular issue, to
know what LGBT listeners think about this thing of straight
allies sort of doing our own like standing with you
(25:19):
refusing to get married, or maybe we're just gonna go
ahead and get married, but we're gonna acknowledge the fact
but not everybody can get married, Like is it does
it feel disingenuous? Yeah? That's something that I'm wondering too,
because I know a couple who dated for years and
I mean they're super live and they absolutely said, like
(25:39):
we are not there's no way we are getting married
until everyone can get married. And then, of course, a
couple of years ago they got married. And so I'm
just wondering, like does that just make it seem like, God,
do you guys just shut up? And you know, like,
I am curious to what our is that? Yeah, is
that the appropriate way to acknowledge our heteronormat of privilege?
(26:01):
You know, to put it in really stodgy sounding terms?
I don't know. I mean I feel like it's a
it's probably coming from a good place. Yeah, yeah, I yes,
I believe it is too. I don't like believe it's
an attention getting thing, but yeah, you have to wonder
about it. One one example that I do like, um
is from Anne Hathaway's wedding to Adam Schulman, her boyfriend
(26:22):
and Hathaway the actors in case I don't know you're
under a rock. But she authorized the sale of her
wedding pictures to benefit Freedom to Marry, which is an
advocate group, as well as three other charities, and a
couple of years ago, Freedom to Marry created its own
marital registry and since then the majority of donations they've
received have come from heterosexual weddings. Yeah, and another. Straight
(26:45):
couples have incorporated things like reading from court decisions on
same sex marriage in their ceremony, or others might hand
out lapel pins with the white Not logo, which is
produced by an LGBT advocacy organization, White Not Dot Org,
while others might ask us to sign petitions or open
letters in support of gay marriage. So basically, but but
(27:07):
isn't that again a little bit of let's have our
cake and eat it too at our wedding, literally a
little bit. I don't know. I don't know how I
feel about it entirely because obviously I don't not support it.
But at the same time, I think, is is this
the best way to push push this forward? I don't know.
(27:28):
I don't know either. I mean maybe if it gets
your some of your more conservative family members at least
thinking about it, that's a good point. I mean, yeah,
I don't I don't know. Yeah. LGBT listeners please advise.
Because then there's also the whole thing of celebrity couples
such as Brad and Angelina right saying they're not going
(27:50):
to get married at all. Charlie Thorna said the same thing.
dNaM has said that she and that guy with the
big glasses who makes those pop songs won't get married
until everyone can get married. Lena Dunham is just the
most recent and a string of people. Although you know,
like it's the same thing, does it come off as
disingenuous because Brad Pitt has also come out and said that,
(28:11):
you know, it's up to our kids. If our kids
really want us to get married and it's important to them,
then we will again, I think all of us just
underscores the fact that it's incredible that we have the
choice to do that and some people, a lot of
people don't have the choice. You know. That just highlights
how there's still such a disparity. Yeah, and so on
(28:34):
the one hand, anything that can bring attention to that
disparity is positive. However, you know, I feel like there's
some crotchety old people out there looking at Lena Dunham
and Angelina and shaking their fist and being like the
dumb kids. You just have to wonder like, is it effective,
is it genuine? Is it doing what they wanted to do?
But it's not bad that they're doing it exactly. Yeah,
(28:56):
definitely not bad that they're doing it. Um. Now, finally
we got to talk of let's get down to brass
tacks when it comes to weddings. If you want to
really have an argument about, you know, kind of stripped
of politics, you just talk about money. Let's just talk
about the economics of gay marriage, because you know what,
last time I checked, the U. S has this massive deficit. Okay,
(29:18):
we could use some extra cash in the coffers. And
one way to do that is to legalize a gay marriage. Yeah,
trust me. Kristen checks the deficit every day. So last
time she checked means like two minutes ago. I am
fun at parties on her phone. Yeah. But no, it
turns out you guys lo and behold. Granting people their
civil rights can have an impact on the economy. Um.
(29:39):
So if we look Predoma, if we go back before
the Defensive Marriage Act was destroyed. Back in two thousand nine,
the New York Times reported that same sex couple stood
to lose as much as five grand over a lifetime
because they couldn't marry and therefore get benefits like spousal
health insurance and other off and that led to more
(30:02):
same sex couples being more likely to be uninsured. And
then that can snowball into people who are uninsured avoiding
preventive care and winding up costing everybody when they go
to the emergency room. It's a whole mess when people
can't get spousal benefits. So economist Lee Badgett, writing for
PBS in March, was citing her research and that from
(30:24):
the Congressional Budget Office, and she was saying that state
and federal budgets will actually get a positive boost if
gay couples are allowed to marry. She talks about any
additional state and federal spending on benefits, so once you're
a spouse and you can receive spousal benefits would be
outweighed by savings from lower cash assistance and medicaid spending.
(30:45):
Badgets talking about all of these good, give and take
economic aspects of allowing gay people to marry. She also
talks about, now remember this is pre damas, she's also
talking about how there'd probably be an increase in tax revenue.
She talks about how all of a sudden, you've got
this basically like pent up pot, what wedding ready population
(31:06):
who's been unable to marry this whole time, and suddenly
you're going to have like the floodgates open and thousands
of excited couples can start finally planning a quote unquote
real wedding. And she said that would generate at least
one point five billion dollars by her calculations, and spending
on things like flowers, cakes, fans, meals, photographers, hotels, tourism, suits, gowns,
(31:29):
and not to mention those really expensive like bridle or
groom party outfits can I just mention, though, Caroline, that
when you said this pent up group of people ready
to get married, I just envisioned a bunch of brides
and grooms leaping out of a crock pot simmering. I
picture I picture them at like the start line of
(31:51):
a race, like, let us freaking get married. And then
her last point one of when one of Badgett's other
points was that there are a ton of employers who, really,
you know, they don't care, like have a wedding, don't
have a wedding, I don't care. But there are a
lot of employers big and small out there who say,
we just want to recruit and retain the best people.
And if making our employees better means making them happy,
(32:14):
and if making them happy means letting them get married,
then freaking let them get married. Uh. Companies like Google, Apple, Viacom, Nike,
all these people are saying, we just want our LGBT
employees to actually be able to focus on their jobs
and being really super creative and awesome, not dealing with
the whole issue of stigma and inequality that creates problems
and stress on their families. Yeah, and so if you
(32:36):
look at New York as an example, where gay marriage
was legalized in two thousand eleven, the state has seen
an economic ripple effect from same sex marriage. This was
reported on by CNN in July, and it found that
between things like marriage license fees, local celebrations, and wedding
(32:57):
related purchases, New York The's economy added two million dollars
to its bottom line, right, and the city collected sixteen
million dollars in tax revenue from same sex marriages during
that period. And remember this is just in a year
from when it was legalized in New York to the
article being written in July. But weddings, not not just
(33:20):
like getting your license, not just you know, having a
little local dinner party to celebrate. Weddings brought the biggest
economic boost to New York City, with about sixty seven
percent of same sex couples who got married in the
city holding wedding receptions at venues in the city like hotels, restaurants,
all that stuff throughout New York City. But then that
also brings up my more cynical side caroline of saying, well,
(33:42):
is this only just feeding the wedding industrial complex? I
think I'm just terrified of ever being at a point
in my life where I'm expected to spend twenty seven
thousand dollars on one day. I just don't know if
I can do it now, the y O. B Man.
So for a more recent example, let's look at Utah, which,
at the time of us recording this podcast is basically
(34:05):
on the legal precipice of same sex marriage being allowed,
and the u c l A. Based Williams Institute found
that legalizing same sex marriage could generate in Utah fifteen
point five million dollars in wedding spending in more than
one million dollars in sales tax revenue for Utah's economy
in just the first three years, And on top of that,
(34:27):
it could also generate two d sixty eight jobs in
the tourism and hospitality sector. Yeah, so, I mean, weddings
in general are kind of a shot in the arm
for state economies. Just imagine though, if you have like
this big rush of people being like we could have weddings. Now,
who's to say that it won't like eventually kind of
(34:48):
level off in plateau. But hey, states, if you're if
you're looking to make some money and also grant people's
civil rights. Yeah, I mean, because I'm just saying that
the whole economic argument is a good one to up
in your back pocket when you're talking to people who
aren't so on board with the idea of same sex marriage,
because it's hard to argue with saying, well, you know this,
this would generate massive amounts of money. Everybody likes money, right,
(35:12):
everybody likes money. Um. But so, looking to a gallop
pole that was conducted on us spending from January through September,
so sort of straddling pre and post doma um, they
found that married Americans spend more than those in any
(35:32):
other marital status category across age groups. So there's another argument.
When you're married, you spend more money. Americans who have
never married spend significantly less, particularly for those people who
were under fifty, suggesting that if the marriage rate increases
across the country, overall spending may increase and benefit our economy.
(35:55):
Yet another reason why extending civil rights to all is
a good idea, right because think about it, if you're
pooling two incomes, basically, even if you have separate bank accounts, um,
you are more likely to to actually spend on things.
Maybe fix up your house, fix up your yards, go on. Vacation,
who knows, who knows. The possibilities really are endless for
(36:16):
how you could spend your money. So what do we
have to say with all of this, Caroline, Gay weddings happening,
Old traditions meet new traditions. Yeah, I think, Um, on
the one hand, it must be nice to not have
that traditional baggage of like we have to do weddings
(36:36):
this one way. On the other hand, it's unfortunate that
that freedom stems from the fact that these folks have
never been allowed to marry and so they haven't had
traditions in place already. But um, you know, if if
anyone out there wants to invite me to your, uh,
(36:57):
to your same sex wedding, it sounds like it would
be a lot of fun judging by the statistics we
have presented here. Well, you know what, weddings are usually fun.
I like going to weddings. Personally, I don't want to
plan one, but I enjoy going if there's an it depends.
I've been to some good ones and I've been to
some if well, And we're going to talk about that
on the next episode of Stuff I've Never told you.
(37:18):
With our interview with Jen Dahl, who wrote an entire
memoir about going to weddings. Because guess what, folks, whether
you knew it or not, it's weddings week here on
the podcast. But LGBT listeners, we especially want to hear
from you on this, those who have gotten married. Have
you gone through the whole gay wedding planning and encountered
any of the things that we were talking about. Are
(37:39):
you tired of being treated as a trend piece in
the wedding section in the New York Times. Do you
think that all this is positive and good and we
are accelerating in the right direction. Yeah, I do think.
Let me reiterate, I do think that it is on
the horizon that we're getting to a place where there
isn't a gay wedding and a straight wedding. And I
(37:59):
mean like living like I live in I live in
midtown Atlanta, for instance, And the fact that you the
fact that anyone would walk into a florist and would
not be served because they are gay, Uh, just like
wouldn't it just wouldn't happen, not in not where I live.
And so but I understand that Atlanta is just a pocket, Yeah,
(38:21):
a pocket, a special little blue pocket um in the
red jeans of Georgia. Yeah, still still a lot of
progress to be made, So LGBT listeners, we especially want
to hear from you on this topic. What has been
your experience with weddings? Are you hoping to plan one
one day once same sex marriage becomes legal in your
state or wherever you live. Have you planned one, and
(38:42):
if so, what was it like? Please share all the
details with us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com is where you can send your emails. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or send us
a Facebook message, and we've got a couple of Facebook
messages to share with you right now. So I've got
(39:03):
an email here from David, subject line that shaming in
the gay community, and this is in response to our
episode the body shame Epidemic. He writes, I've been a
fat man my whole life. It hasn't been an easy time,
but I'm slowly coming to grips with bad acceptance. By this,
I mean, instead of focusing on the scale number, I'm
trying to live a life that is happy, is being
(39:23):
healthy and being loving. I'm lucky enough to have found
a man who married me. Hey, speaking of gay weddings
because I was fat, not in spite of it. This
leads me to my story. When I was first exploring
coming out, I attempted to go to a gay bar
in my college town. I say attempted because in the
parking lot a group of rather nice looking men cat
called over to me. They said, hey, Patty, there isn't
(39:46):
anything in there for you. No one will even look
at you. It has stayed with me even today. While
there are gay groups that welcome have your men, the
gay community by and large is a vicious place of
fat shaming. One needs only to surface glance at most
a media to see the over obsession with twinks, hotness,
and the like. While the straight community has this too,
it does seem to be a bit more flexible in
(40:07):
terms of allowing heavier members to be in and find love.
Like you mentioned with the sitcom situation, I would like
to think that gay culture and the community is changing,
but there isn't a ton of evidence in that direction.
That being said, I've been with the same wonderful man
for twenty years and have been happily married for five
ever since our state made it legal. So I would
(40:29):
like to hear from other gay listeners about that. Do
you have you witnessed or experienced a similar kind of
more extreme or more acute I should say that shaming
among the LGBT community let us know. Okay, I have
a letter here from Kirsty about our women and gaming episodes. Uh.
(40:49):
She says it reminded me so much of a conversation
between a good guy friend of mine and my husband.
The guy friend, who definitely qualifies as a hardcore gamer,
said that he thinks that so much exposure to video
games has just started his view of women, since they
are always portrayed as helpless princesses that need to be rescued. Thus,
this is the kind of romantic relationship he expects to have. Also,
(41:09):
he thinks it has given him unrealistic expectations of what
women's body should look like, since they are always portrayed well, unrealistically.
My husband's response was that it is complete bs to
blame attitudes about women exclusively on video games, and that
there are plenty of video games that have awesome female
characters if you actually bother to look for them. He
says that Sama's is one of his favorite characters because
(41:31):
she is, in his words, a total badass. She is
super tough and certainly doesn't need any rescuing for the
entire game. Her sex is a non issue, and he
thought it was really cool when she was revealed to
be a woman because it flew in the face of
expectations about action here is It surprised me that you
had only negative things to say about Sammy's on the
podcast is she is so well beloved and better known
for being tough than being sexy. And she says, by
(41:54):
the way, that her husband is currently playing uh Final
Fantasy Third Team, I'd and realize that exists, which has
a really awesome female protagonist, and he does. He said
it doesn't matter to him either way if the character
he's playing is male or female. Is long is the
game is good. So thank you for writing in, Kirsty,
and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom stuff
at how stuff Works dot Com is our email address
(42:17):
and to find all the links to our social media blog, post, videos,
and podcast, there's one place to go, and it's stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works
dot com. Audible dot com is the leading provider of
(42:44):
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