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THE FIRST GAY WEDDING WITH HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE: BAKER AND McCONNELL, MINNESOTA, 1970
Prelude to the Trial of the Century: Baehr v. Miike
Brought to you by Lambda Aloha . . .
By Tim Campbell
(c) December 1996
Most of the news reports about gay and lesbian marriage in the media this year leave the impression that the very idea of same-sex marriage began in Hawai`i in 1990. That is not true.
The idea of legal gay marriage rights actually originated in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 18, 1970 when Jack Baker and Mike McConnell walked up to a counter and asked a Hennepin County clerk to issue them a marriage license.
Baker and McConnell were attractive, down-to-earth, middle-class, law-abiding, professional men who applied for a marriage license through a legal institution and got married by a mainstream minister while acknowledging to all involved that both partners were of the male gender. They sent out a news release and accompanying photo of themselves both dressed in male garb cutting a wedding cake. Tuxedo-clad figurines representing two grooms topped the cake, literally.
I use the Baker-McConnell marriage as the starting line for the contemporary drive for gay marriage because their marriage got international news coverage, because the couple received ten boxes of supportive mail from all over the world, and because same-sex couples have been getting married on a regular basis ever since.
By contrast, the Stonewall riots back in 1969 did not receive national or international news attention. The New York Times did a couple of short articles about "Stonewall" and the Greenwich Village (NYC) based Village Voice did a more extensive article, but the Stonewall marches themselves did not get national or international news coverage. Other gays learned about Stonewall only gradually, mostly through the Advocate and through books. The Baker-McConnell wedding bells tolled around the world.
In the aftermath of this famous marriage, Jack Baker was elected Student Body President at the University of Minnesota. To many observers this proved that young people, straight and gay, were ready for gay rights and for gay marriage. Baker's campus victory also prompted coverage in campus newspapers throughtout the world. University newspaper photo editors jumped all over campy campaign photos of Baker sporting high heels in contrast to his generally Ivy-league appearance otherwise.
In 1971, Baker completed his law degree. He later set up a law practice in south Minneapolis where he continues to work to this day. His partner, Mike McConnell continues to pursue the same career with the Hennepin County Library system he had just begun when he and Jack got married. Today, twenty-six years later, the Baker and McConnell are still live together happily in south Minneapolis
Baker and McConnell are not, however, interested in re-entering the debate over gay marriage. Jack made this comment this summer just after Congress voted on the Defense of Marriage Act: "We did what we did. Our lives are in order and well on their way now. We prefer to let the rest of you guys work out all the details. The balloon has been launched."
Between 1970 and 1975, Baker and McConnell filed about eight different lawsuits related to their status as married persons. The first of their lawsuits was against the clerk who refused to issue them a marriage license (shades of this in Baehr v. Miike). Baker and McConnell subsequently went to Blue Earth County and obtained a Minnesota marriage license using slightly different but legal names. In another lawsuit, Baker, a veteran, sought veteran's benefits for his spouse. In short, Baker and McConnell raised most of the legal issues that have been presented to state or federal courts since 1970.
In 1971, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in one of the Baker-McConnell cases that "the institution of marriage as a union of man and woman uniquely involving the procreating and rearing of children within the family is as old as the book of Genesis." Not surprisingly, opposition to gay marriage quoted that decision during the recent Congressional debate over DOMA.
Naturally, the idea of gay marriage was not entirely new with Baker and McConnell. Jean Genet described a same-sex marriage in a boys' prison in France in his novel, "Our Lady of the Flowers," way back in the '40s; and John Rechy described the marriage of a transvestite male and another male in his 1963 novel, "City of Night."
But prior to the Baker-McConnell marriage in 1970, most of the bar talk and pulp fiction about gay marriage envisioned marriages between one cross-dressing partner and one straight appearing partner. These marriages of "butches" and "fems" were to some extent simple parodies of heterosexual marriage. Jean Genet's same-sex marriages were meant to embrace outlaw status, not conformity.
Moreover, most middle-class, "straight-appearing, straight acting" gays and lesbians were as shocked and repulsed by same-sex marriages, or by the drag used to pull them off, as were bona fide heterosexuals.
By applying for marriage licenses and getting married by a minister as same-sex-identified males, Baker and McConnell put marriage solidly on the agenda for gay rights. Nothing proves this better than the thousands of gay and lesbian marriages which have occurred following their example. And during the last big March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, some 30,000 same-sex couples attended one ceremony in which their marriages were blessed.
As a political sideline, let me note that 1970s supporters of gay rights within the Democratic party, notably Minnesota State Senator Alan Spear in Minneapolis, reacted negatively to the Baker-McConnell wedding. Spear claimed Baker and McConnell were going to "sabotage single-handedly" the whole drive for gay rights, and that "only the lunatic fringe" was interested in gay marriage.
On the national gay rights scene, one of Spear's proteges, Steve Endean, was very active in the founding of the national gay rights groups, the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force. Spear and Endean's foot-dragging on gay marriage probably set the tone for the policy on gay marriage in those groups as well in gay and lesbian caucuses in the Democratic Party nationally. Spear and Endean undoubtedly had a direct negative influence on Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone who voted for DOMA in spite of his reputation as an "ultra-liberal" and on President Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law.
[Tim Campbell is a freelance writer.]
The following list refers to selected Hawai`i newspaper articles dealing with the Same-Sex Marriage [SSM] issue. If you have a link to include to this archive please contact us at Lambda Aloha
The First Gay Wedding with Historical Importance: Baker and McConnell
The GARDEN ISLAND (8/29/96): Hawai`i Delegates Defend Clinton on SSM
ASSOCIATED PRESS (9/9/96): Hawai`i Gay Marriage Case Opens
The HONOLULU ADVERTISER (9/9/96): Questions and Answers about Baehr v. Miike
KHNL (NBC) POLL (9/9/96): For or Against Same-Sex Marriage?
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