Michael McConnell

I enjoyed reading this book, mainly for the personal, first-hand accounts of life in the gay communities of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s.
Michael is the author of the book and, with the aid of his journalist friend, he tells the story of his relationship with Jack in a direct and personal way. He describes the large gatherings and informal parties of the gay scene in mid-century Oklahoma, how he met Jack and how they built up their relationship and decided that they wanted to get married. Michael describes his strong and supportive family, and Jack’s absence of one, both of which likely contributed to their ability to challenge social norms by living openly as a gay couple. Michael also acknowledges (briefly) the changing social environment, the “cultural earthquake of 1960s,” with the Vietnam resistance, the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement.
I found his story of setting up a gay support group together with author and activist John Preston in the city of Minneapolis an interesting one. He says that this was one of the first gay community centres in the United States, but the struggles around providing services and finding a unity of purpose are familiar ones. Equally, Jack’s history as a gay student leader in the early 1970s, apparently the first out gay student president at a major American university, is also an interesting story, with a campaign that directly and successfully challenged homophobia with humour and innovative, practical policies.
The successes and support that Michael and Jack had make me expand my view of the American mid-west. Apparently, it was not as intolerant and homophobic as the stereotypes suggest. However, the termination of Michael’s university library job offer, and the failure of the American Library Association to take up his case, to say nothing of their marriage fight, show that support was not universal. In fact, I suspect that Michael is downplaying some of homophobia they may have encountered.
In this light, the marriage story is peculiar. Michael wanted their community to acknowledge their love, and Jack I think chose to enthusiastically support his partner. It’s a bit disappointing that the book never gets into Jack’s mind in the same way that it gets into Michael’s, so we don’t know if it would have been an issue he would have chosen to fight without Michael wanting it. As a young law student, Jack initially takes a naïve view of the issue, and after a long series of legal steps, ultimately fails. Their strategy of getting a marriage certificate under an ambiguous name is essentially deceptive and does not advance the issue legally or socially. They had the support of civil liberties lawyers, but a more considered legal strategy with queer community leaders might have led to a more productive approach – or more likely they would have been advised not to waste resources on it.
Not being an advocate of gay marriage, I’m personally less interested in the details of the legal fight for their marriage, and the wedding itself is a tad underwhelming – far from the rather grandiose claims of the title. Of course, queer couples should have the same rights to marriage as unqueer ones and Michael and Jack’s choice to claim public recognition of their love and their relationship is inspiring. It’s just the particular way that they chose to demand recognition, and the deceptive way that they did it, that make the story a bit odd.
Still, the personal story is illuminating and inspiring. I learned about some aspects of gay cultural history, and two nice people who undertook a challenging struggle. It’s well worth a read.… (plus d'informations)

The authors deserve solid respect for their groundbreaking activism in the seventies. Their achievements are the more noteworthy for having been accomplished outside the gay meccas of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City.

The most impactful effort concerns the topic of this pleasant memoir, their early, arguably immature attempt to force the U.S. Supreme Court to find a right to same-sex marriage. The negative order in Baker v. Nelson that "The appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question" would be the only SCOTUS decision on the topic until Obergefell, and would prove to be an significant obstacle on the road to obtaining the right to marry.

Although the effort was naive, one cannot fault the heart with which it was undertaken. The major criticism follows upon what happened next. The authors claim that they are the world's first legally same-sex married couple because by employing deceptions they were able to obtain a marriage license which has never yet been officially recorded.

Upon the failure to obtain a license that was the basis for the SCOTUS case, they decided to obtain many of the rights by having McConnell adopt Baker, which included a name change to a deliberately gender neutral alternative. Name changes whose sole object is to deceive are not generally favored, and the authors fail to mention when the name was changed back to Jack Baker. More problematically, they were "married" while legally father and son, which would render the marriage null even if, on all other counts, it was valid. Other couples in similar situations have worked to first have the adoption annulled (http://www.people.com/article/pennsylvania-gay-couple-annul-adoption-marry), but McConnell and Baker have, in their minds, been both father and son and married spouses for over forty years. That's just kind of icky.

They have never been able to convince the IRS, the VA, Social Security, or any governmental agency to recognize their marriage. They are unlikely to succeed, and that would be the correct outcome. One hopes they'll eventually decide to do things correctly, void the adoption and get married before they find themselves in a difficult situation.… (plus d'informations)