May 14, 2004  |  By: ADRIAN BRUNE  | COMMENTS     

Matt Foreman only vaguely recalls most Queer Nation meetings he attended during the fall of 1990 — when same-sex civil marriage was not even a legal concept, let alone a social revolution — but he is reminded regularly of one particularly significant meeting of the activist group.

Working then as the executive director of the New York Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, Foreman arrived Sept. 18, 1990, at the Gay & Lesbian Community Center in his formal capacity to coordinate plans for a joint, gay visibility march with the radical civil rights group. However, during his talk, he couldn’t help but notice an attractive Hispanic man and solicited a mutual friend’s help to arrange an introduction with the young graphic designer.

Their first date was dinner at the Stonewall Inn, a Christopher Street mainstay; the second, the Queer Nation march in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. And more than 15 years later, Foreman’s politics have again become personal as he and Francisco De Leon, plan to finally solemnize their union on May 17 — with the world watching — at a city clerk’s office in Massachusetts.

“I’m obviously paid to be a professional homosexual, but this is a very personal decision,” said Foreman, now the executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. “I’m not old-fashioned when it comes to many things; I am when it comes to marriage. I believe our relationship will never be seen as equal to others unless we are married.”

To Foreman, his own marriage demonstrates a commitment to his partner, and, he says, to the vision of Stonewall, “which was to create new ways for people to have family.”

For marriage — for others
But for many of the other leaders of large gay and lesbian advocacy groups directly involved in the push for same-sex matrimony, the logic behind the reproductive rights movement in the 1970s applies. They might not ever personally need or want a civil marriage, but they have dedicated their professional lives to ensuring that right for every American.

That appears to be the case for the two most prominent gay rights leaders pushing marriage equality.

Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques, a former Massachusetts state senator who introduced marriage legislation before resigning that post, won’t return to her native state to wed partner Jennifer Chrisler. Despite her new role as the gay movement’s chief lobbyist, the pragmatism Jacques acquired as an attorney has apparently led her to rule out immediate matrimony.

Jacques, who regularly mentions her family, including twins Timmy and Tommy, when advocating for marriage equality, declined to explain why marriage wasn’t the right personal step for her family at this time.

“Jenn and I feel honored and privileged to be able to have this conversation, but we will remain married in our hearts, not legally,” said Jacques, who has retained her Massachusetts residency.

Evan Wolfson, of the Freedom to Marry Coalition, one of the prime forces behind the marriage movement as the lead counsel in the landmark Hawaii marriage suit, says his role is “to mind the rest of the store.” He has also decided to wait on marrying his boyfriend.

Observers of the marriage movement — which acquired legs in the early ‘90s at a biannual gathering of national gay rights litigators called the Roundtable, but took off with lightning speed after the 2001 filing of Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health — can divide the vested organizations into two categories: the lawyers and the lobbyists.

On the whole, and not atypically, the executives of legal advocacy groups will not sign marriage licenses next Monday, while their activist counterparts have expressed desire, if not intention, to officially tie the knot.

“I feel like it would be odd to get married and then be in court, arguing and championing the validity of my own marriage license. I want more detachment, even though I couldn’t be more immersed and invested in the outcome,” said Kate Kendall, the executive director of the San-Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Kendall did not marry her partner of 11 years in February and will not on Monday. “Whether actual or perceptual, there was a line on the ground that I didn’t feel like stepping across — most judges and plaintiffs want the legal advocate to have a degree of removal from the issue.”

Kendall may already be paying a price at home for missing out on the brief window of opportunity in San Francisco.

“My partner has made it very clear that since we didn’t get married ...