That signals clearly gays have won the culture war over
this issue. The rest will be small
potatoes.
Great thanks are due to Minnesotans
Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, the Grooms-Zero in the contemporary (Twentieth Century)
drive for gay marriage in the USA and perhaps world-wide. News of their marriage circled the globe May 18, 1970.
Thanks, Jack and Mike. Bravissimo!
_________________________________________________________
MCLU
litigations for gays and lesbians
The group's director claims it was the first established non-gay group to champion gay marriage, before even ACLU
By Tim Campbell
Former Publisher GLC Voice newspaper, Minneapolis (1979-1992)
Matthew
Stark who served the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union as President then
Executive Director from 1967 thru 1988 boasts that MCLU backed Jack
Baker and Mike McConnell's right to marry at a time when ACLU national
refused to do so. Jack Baker backs up Stark's claim.
Litigation
related to the Baker-McConnell marriage dragged on for decades. MCLU
supported many lawsuits in the early 1970s. In later decades the group
declined to do so. By that time, the group had changed its name to ACLU
Minnesota. Phil Willkie who now sits on that board says the national
group started holding tighter reigns on the state groups after the name
was changed.
Below is a summary of the early litigation about gay marriage supported by the MCLU. Below that is a note on support for gay rights from Cowles Media.
Early litigation over Jack and Mike's marriage application supported by MCLU
Between 1970 and 1993, the Minnesota
Civil Liberties Union supported or litigated sixteen or more controversies
involving gay or lesbian clients. Each
of those cases involved important civil rights such as the right to serve in
the military, the right to be a Big Brother or Sister, the right to employment
without discrimination, and sodomy laws. One of those cases involved someone in the military who had a sex change.
In this blog entry, we want to summarize
four disputes supported by MCLU which are directly related to marriage equality
for gays and lesbians. Three of those
cases involve Jack Baker and Mike McConnell.
The other involves Karen Thompson and her partner Sharon Kowalsky. Those four cases include:
Baker v Nelson (Hennepin County)over a marriage license.
McConnell v Board of Regents (University
of Minnesota) over Mike's employment.
Baker v Minnesota Board of Law Examiners
over Jack's law license.
Thompson v Kowalsky's Parents over
guardianship of an incapacitated partner.
1.
Baker v Nelson, 1971-1972 was filed against Hennepin County which
refused to grant Jack Baker and Mike McConnell a marriage license. They applied for that license May 18, 1970
with members of the media in tow. This
issue was litigated all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 8th Circuit US Court first affirmed it. That appellate court then denied the license. The 8th Circuit of appeals includes MN, ND, SD, IA, NE, Mo and AK. Not exactly the most urban states in the U.S. And finally, the US Supreme Court itself declined to review the 8th Circuit's Appelate decision.
2.
McConnell v Board of Regents 1970-1972 against the University of
Minnesota which appointed J. Michael McConnell to a library position by
letter
in April 1970 but then reneged on that letter after McConnell and Baker
got a
boat load of news coverage for applying for a marriage license...to each
other. Both were competent for marriage
in Minnesota. Apparently the Regents
objected to their choosing each other.
MCLU and ACLU litigated this matter unsuccessfully all the way to the
U.S. Supreme Court. McConnell again won then lost in the 8th Circuit Court. Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The firebrand Regents at the U of MN claimed McConnell as an employee risked making it look
like the U of M approved of gay marriage which the Regents found
repugnant. Baker and McConnell are still trying to negotiate an apology
for that insult out of the Regents.
3.
Baker v Minnesota Board of Law Examiners, 1972. Because of his marriage to Mike, this board
called Jack Baker in for a hearing about the "moral qualifications"
it deemed necessary to be a lawyer.
Ultimately, this board did not reject Baker's application for a law
license. MCLU represented Baker at this
hearing.
4.
Thompson v Kowalsky's Parents, 1983-1991. In these proceedings
before various
governmental bodies, Karen Thompson fought for the right to visit and
care for
her partner Sharon Kowalsky who had been severely injured in an
automobile
accident in 1983 and rendered incapable or nearly incapable of speaking
for
herself. Kowalsky's parents did not want
Karen to even visit Sharon. Thompson was
finally declared Sharon's guardian in 1991 by a panel of "judges" who
decided Karen and
Sharon constituted a "family of affinity." Unfortunately, Kowalsky's
parents had to get too old and feeble to care for Sharon themselves
before those government professionals became so wise. MCLU volunteer
attorneys from the law firm
Faegre and Benson (Minneapolis) and MNGALLA (Minnesota Gay and Lesbian
Legal
Assistance) provided legal support at all these hearings.
The GLC Voice newspaper in Minneapolis,
which was published by the author of this blog, first told the world about
Sharon Kowalsky and Karen Thompson May 19, 1986 in an article researched and
written by Julie Miller headlined "Why
cant Sharon come home???" Top
of page one!
MCLU better than the Civil Rights Departments in the Twin Cities
Between
1970 and 1998 when I left Minneapolis, MCLU championed more cases of
discrimination against gays and lesbians than the Civil Rights
Departments of both Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Nonetheless, both
cities claimed to lead the nation in passing ordinances barring
discrimination against lesbians and gays.
Unfortunately,
both cities excluded gays from coverage in anything but employment and
housing. Subsequently, those civil rights departments did nothing for
us. They did not even take any cases dealing with employment and
housing. So much for "half a loaf" compromises on people's rights!
About Cowles Media coverage of the marriage and about "visionary" owner John Cowles Jr.
John
Cowles, Jr., the owner of Cowles Media which published the Minneapolis
Star and Tribune, died this month and will be buried Friday, May 18
in the Twin Cities. Oddly, that's the forty-second anniversary of Jack
Baker and Mike McConnell's application for a marriage license.demand for
gay marriage. Cowles obituary asks people to send memorials to the MCLU
calling it by its earlier name. That obituary also calls him a
"visionary."
Reflecting
on that, wondering what Cowles' "visions" included, I found it easy to
imagine that acceptance of gay rights and gay marriage was an important
part of the package. I believe that because from the very beginning, May
18, 1970 coverage of the fight for gay marriage in Cowles' Minneapolis
Star and Tribune was ahead of the pack in its acceptance of the idea.
Very shortly after the gay marriage, another Cowles publication, LOOK
magazine, presented gay marriage as positively Rockwellesque. In short,
Cowles publications nurtured the idea of gay marriage from its
conception.
Cowles
publications were also, I think, the first publications to start using
"gay" and "lesbian" instead of "homosexual." in news reports and
editorials about us. That was in part because, in about 1974, Jack
Baker and I met with reporters and editors at the Star and Tribune to
request this style sheet change. They made that change. Thanks.
(Note
that at that time we also asked the NY Times, Newsweek, the Washington
Post and a few other publications to make that style sheet change. We
had no success elsewhere. I don't think the NY Times has come around to
this day. Dear Abby made the change in her column in 1975 when I asked
her to do so while sharing a cab in San Francisco.)
This
editor is hoping Cowles biographer will enlighten us one day on this
publishers "visions." While waiting, I'll prefer to think he may have
been our best friend back in the early 1970s
.
(Note: Matthew Stark denies any knowledge of Cowles being a big supporter of MCLU during his time there. In summaries of some litigation, Stark gives financial information in detail. On the Baker and McConnell stuff, Stark provides no financial information.)
******
The folllowing is a previously published story about the Baker-McConnell marriage.
________________________________________________________________
Pulse Twin Cities April 8, 2004
How gay marriage got divorced from gay rights
by Tim Campbell
The early years
Jack Baker and Mike McConnell applied for a marriage license on May
18, 1970 in Minneapolis. That is the first known gay marriage license
application. The Clerk of District Court for Hennepin County summarily
refused to issue them a license. Subsequently, Baker and McConnell went
to Blue Earth County in southwestern Minnesota and got a license on
August 16, 1971, from a different clerk. They were married on September 3
using that license. The Rev. Roger Lynn, a United Methodist minister,
performed the ceremony.
That gay marriage required a little legal detour. In early August
1971, Baker changed his name to Pat Lyn McConnell. Consequently, the
names on the license are Pat Lyn McConnell (aka Jack Baker) and J.
Michael McConnell. They wanted the same last name in case they acquired
children.
Baker was in law school at the University of Minnesota. McConnell
had just been nominated as an instructor and chief cataloguer at the
university library on the St. Paul Campus. In the wake of monumental
news coverage over this controversy, the students at the University of
Minnesota elected Baker student body president. The University Board of
Regents, on the other hand, reacted by withdrawing McConnell’s
nomination as a library head and university instructor.
During this media onslaught, Jack and Mike received four large boxes
of mail from all over the world. I have met people who saw articles
about the event in newspapers in both Paris and Athens. Most of the mail
was supportive.
Moreover, Jack’s victory at the student polls was probably the first
instance of a vote by the general, non-gay public, on attitudes towards
gays. That vote made one thing clear: the time had come for gay rights.
The Baker-McConnell dispute also produced a wave of copycat gay
marriages throughout the country. I was a graduate student at the
University of Texas in Austin at the time. There, I was invited to at
least five gay marriages. One drag queen even asked me to marry her.
Worse yet, I accepted. Fortunately, we both forgot about it when we
sobered up.
Tell the whole truth. The bulk of that rash of gay weddings involved
drag queens with butch-looking lovers. They were, however, performed by
ministers. Most of them did not last longer than a good underarm
deodorant. None of them, to my knowledge, involved real marriage
licenses.
Gay marriage was not exactly a brand new idea, even back in 1970.
Jean Genet described one in a novel in 1943 and John Rechy did so in
1963.There were big differences, however. The Baker-McConnell wedding
involved same-sex appearance. It was intended to produce social
stability like a straight marriage. By contrast, the Genet and Rechy gay
weddings were staged to look like opposite-sex marriages and designed
to scoff at society. They were not intended to produce social stability.
Baker and McConnell are still together to this day. In fact, they
have been together a total of 38 years now, 34 of those married. Sure
beats Britney Spears’ marriage record! Also beats the records of Zaza
Gabor and Liz Taylor.
Decades of lawsuits
Baker and McConnell ended up in decades of legal haggling because of
their marriage. The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the clerk who denied
them a license. Its decision cited the Book of Genesis. Jack and Mike
appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, Warren Burger and
cohorts dismissed their appeal for lack of a “substantial federal
question.” How would they rule today? Who knows. President George W.
Bush certainly wants to turn gay marriage into a substantial federal
issue now.
Baker, now a lawyer, argues their marriage was and remains valid
since there were no laws or court decisions prohibiting same sex
marriages on September 3, 1971. He notes: “Every court recognizes this
basic principle: that which is not prohibited is permitted.” The
Minnesota marriage statute actually has a section listing non-valid
marriages. Same-sex marriage is not on that list. Baker argues their
marriage is in fact more solid legally than the recent ones in San
Francisco. Those marriages were performed after laws against same-sex
marriages were passed.
Jack and Mike Had a Dream
Legal considerations aside, Jack and Mike’s genius was to perceive
long before most, that the right to marry is an essential part of gay
civil rights. Their point is: the fundamental right for gays and
lesbians is the right to fall in love with and marry the person of one’s
choice. Without that right, there is no such thing as gay rights. “It’s
nonsense,” said Jack long ago, “to find two people (both competent to
marry) incompetent because they chose each other.”
Many gay marriage activists say the right to choose your own spouse
is probably the most characteristic social right of modern western
democracies. Such a right was unheard of in ancient China. It’s a right
rarely granted in the “oily-garchies” of the Middle East. Many
contemporary Jews are still loath to marry outside their religion. Back
in the `50s, Catholic parents hoped that none of their kids would marry
outside their Church. Unthinkable was marrying outside one’s own race.
But times changed. Times change because young people dare to love
outside the box. They always have. They probably always will.
Early Legislation
While the news of the fight over gay marriage and McConnell’s job
denial were fresh in the minds of the public and elected officials,
Baker went to the Minneapolis City Council looking to include gays and
lesbians in the city’s civil rights ordinance. Council Member Ed Felien,
now editor of Pulse of the Twin Cities, took on the task and authored
such a bill. It was passed unanimously in 1974 amid virtual silence on
the council. Felien said recently, “They (the city council members) were
afraid to say anything against it.” This put Minneapolis on the map as
the leader in gay civil rights legislation.
Enter the Democrats
Minneapolis and Saint Paul also beat the rest of the country to the
idea of separating the right to marry from the rest of gay civil rights.
This was in direct response to Baker and McConnell’s marriage.
The anti-marriage contingent included, among others, Alan Spear, a
gay history professor who represented the University of Minnesota
neighborhood as a State Senator. Spear tiptoed out of the closet to a
small circle of friends once Baker got elected student body president.
He proposed to author a gay rights bill on the state level. Senate
Majority Leader Nick Coleman Sr. agreed to help. Spear and Coleman were
both career Democrats.
Coleman’s motive was that he was married to Debbie Howell who had a
gay brother. I suspect Howell’s brother came out to them after Jack got
elected student body president. That made me and hundreds of others come
out. Howell herself was a wig at Minnesota’s main daily newspapers. In
1975, she wrote Alan Spear’s going public interview for the Minneapolis
Star newspaper. Minnesota being a small pond, this trio constituted a
power block.
Sex, Drugs and Secret Parties (I mean fundraisers)
Spear and Coleman hired a part time lobbyist named Steve Endean to
shepherd these gay rights bill through the state senate. There were a
number of hearings and amendments before all the ordinances finally
settled in. Endean was a piece of work. He was in his early 20’s, a
college dropout, and stood only about 5 feet, 6 or 7 inches tall in a
chubby frame. Everybody called him “Weebee.”
By day Endean lobbied at city halls and on Capitol Hill. By night he
checked coats at popular gay discos—first at Sutton’s which has since
folded, then at the Gay `90s which is still the biggest gay bar between
Chicago and San Francisco. After bars closed, “Weebee” almost literally
lived in the local gay bathhouses.
With all this gay contact, Endean got to know both the important
closet gays and the hottest young gay guys. He was great at organizing
private parties, hand picking guests from both groups. Some of the more
outrageous called it “pimping.” Those parties rivaled the ones in Larry
Kramer’s novel, “Faggots: Drugs, sex and rock and roll.” This was how
gay money began to flow into the hands of Democrats back then.
Drag queens and the Baker-McConnell crowd were not invited to these
secret, late-hour fundraiser parties. Baker and McConnell didn’t notice
or mind being left out of the parties, but the drag queens did.
Eventually, they went to the State Legislature en masse, in drag, to
demand inclusion in the gay rights bill. What’s more, the drag queens
won.
Gay marriage, on the other hand, was never included in Minnesota’s
gay rights legislation. Sadly, the Spear-Coleman-Howell laws were
carefully crafted to exclude the “crazies.” That meant the drag queens
and radicals like Baker and McConnell who wanted gay marriage. The laws
also left the University of Minnesota exempt from all these pieces of
legislation.
Enter Half-Measures
The civil rights laws in Minnesota, scripted in the 1960s, had four
parts: employment, housing, public services and public accommodations.
The Spear-Coleman-Howell laws added gays and lesbians to those sections
of said laws that dealt with employment and housing only. They did not
add them to the sections of the same laws that dealt with public
services and public accommodations.
Previously, public services and public accommodations referred to
places like hotels, restaurants and barbershops. Nobody could decide
exactly where marriage licensing fell. Was it a public service? Was it a
public accommodation? They didn’t know.
Nonetheless, they were sure they weren’t going to push gay marriage
and drag queens on anybody. Whenever the proposed legislation had a
setback, Spear and Endean would cuss the “crazies,” that is,
Baker-McConnell and the drag queens. They hardly worried about the wild
parties. Note, however, that everybody agreed, even back then, that full
gay rights would include gay marriage.
The Spear-Coleman-Howell triumvirate got gay rights laws introduced
at the state capitol pretty soon after the Minneapolis and St. Paul
ordinances were passed. Still, it just sat there. It never got out of
committee and never came up for a vote in the whole house and senate. A
public discussion of gay rights was not happening. Spear excused himself
saying: “I don’t want to get some legislators in the habit of voting
against gay rights.” Unfortunately, no one had to fight very hard for
the bill either. The State of Minnesota did not pass a gay rights law
until much later: 1993. Rural Minnesota dragged its feet.
Half-measures exported to Washington, D.C.
In about 1976, Spear and friends let the Minnesota legislation lie
fallow and sent Endean off to Washington, D.C., to work with the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He eventually founded the Human
Rights Campaign. He figured even closeted gays would write checks to a
group so broadly named. “Weebee” eventually died from AIDS but the
groups he influenced have been resisting gay marriage ever since the
`70s. They consider their compromise wise like Solomon. Democrats around
the country have adopted the same “pragmatic” approach.
For example, Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from
Massachusetts who sits in the U.S. House of Representatives, is
currently notorious for his criticism of the gay marriages now occurring
in San Francisco. Ironically, his constituents keep electing him even
though he rented an apartment downstairs of his own dwelling to a
well-known gay prostitute. Naturally, Frank claims he didn’t know.
Clinton’s not the only dumb Democrat.
Supporters of gay marriage, on the other hand, consider this
opposition a fungus growing under the nails of Democrats. While this may
make easier work for politicians, gay marriage supporters insist it’s
not very practical for their goals.
Alan Spear has now retired from the Minnesota Senate and lives with
his longtime partner, Jun, a Japanese immigrant, in central Minneapolis.
He reports that he and Jun have not yet gone anywhere to get a license
or a civil union. “We’ve thought about it, but done nothing. Just
laziness, I guess,” he said recently. Then, he added, “We don’t really
need it.” At least Spear has been consistent!
Epilogue
The half-measure maneuvers of these Democrats did not reap many
benefits for gays and lesbians in Minnesota. In the intervening years,
practically no gays and lesbians have filed complaints with any civil
rights departments anywhere. Someone in a position analogous to Mike
McConnell, can’t even file a complaint under the ordinance because the
University of Minnesota is exempt.
The bottom line is: More gays and lesbians have applied for marriage
licenses this year in San Francisco in one week than have filed
discrimination complaints throughout the country since 1975. That
suggests lots of gays think the right to marry is a very important
right. One might call it a “substantial federal issue.”
(End of article published in 2004 by Pulse Twin Cities, Ed Felien Publisher)
__________________________________________________________________________________
Rebecca Rand Binger 2012
