At the Dallas Morning News, Same-Sex Weddings Aren't Considered Real Weddings

by Michael Jones · 2011-01-19 10:48:00 UTC
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Here's a riddle: when is a wedding not considered a real wedding?

Answer: When it's in the Dallas Morning News.

As we noted a few months ago, a gay Dallas couple, Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup, have been trying like heck to get their paid same-sex wedding announcement into the Weddings section of the Dallas Morning News, the city's largest paper and one of the bigger dailies in the country. But the paper won't allow it. Why?

Because according to the paper's official policy, since the state of Texas doesn't recognize gay marriage, there's no reason for the Dallas Morning News to recognize same-sex weddings as legitimate either. What a shame, and what a missed opportunity for such a respectable paper to set a precedent for other publications around the country.

The logic behind the Dallas Morning News' wedding policy is pretty squishy. Around the country, countless newspapers and publications print same-sex wedding announcements in their Weddings section, even if their respective states don't recognize marriage equality. There's the New York Times. There's the Philadelphia Inquirer. There's even the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska, which has a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.

The Dallas Morning News could join the ranks of these papers, and not segregate same-sex couples under a different label that flies in the face of their legal marriage (after all, we're talking about same-sex couples who get married in the five states, or the District of Columbia, where same-sex marriage is legal). But so far, they haven't.

Mark Reed-Walkup told Change.org that pushing same-sex couples into a different section, or calling their legal marriages just "commitments," is another example of how same-sex couples are made to feel 'less than' in our culture.

"Placing a paid same-sex wedding announcement in any other section but Weddings is 'less than,' as well as false advertisement," Mark said. And he's right.

That's one of the reasons why Mark and his husband have filed a discrimination complaint with the city of Dallas, arguing that the Dallas Morning News' current policy of keeping same-sex couples out of the Weddings section violates the city's nondiscrimination ordinance regarding public accommodations. It's a unique take on anti-discrimination law, and should play out in the coming weeks with interesting results.

"Our ultimate goal is to raise awareness about how this is blatant discrimination and send a clear message to the Dallas Morning News," Mark added. Spoken like a dedicated LGBT activist (it's no wonder that Mark is a board member of GetEqual, the direct action organization that has managed to shake things up on a federal, state and local level for LGBT equality).

Lend your voice to this campaign, and help push the Dallas Morning News in the direction of recognizing all of their readers -- whether they're in heterosexual relationships or same-sex relationships -- equally. After all, the Dallas Morning News does seem willing to recognize same-sex anniversaries. Shouldn't they be willing to recognize same-sex weddings with as much dignity, too?

Photo credit: Newseum

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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