01/21/2008
Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan, Iowa's Gay Married Couple, Reflect
Last week when I posted about the march of bigots that was being planned on the Iowa State House in Des Moines to influence the court over same-sex marriage, a commenter asked, "What I want to know is if those silly college kids who rushed to get married are still together?"
In fact, Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan are still together, and the "silly college kids" spoke to the Des Moines Register about the aftermath of their historic marriage and how things have been going in the meantime.
The months after the wedding were chaotic: A Labor Day honeymoon in Des
Moines. A hectic week of fielding reporters' phone calls. Catching up on missed
schoolwork. Falling back into smoking cigarettes because of stress. Reading
angry comments about their marriage posted below news stories and in blogs,
having those insults bring down their relationship, then finally learning to
ignore it.It wasn't until recently, after finals, after the holidays, after giving up smoking again, that they have been able to take a breath to reflect.
They say this: They never realized how much they wanted marriage until after they were married.
"I now realize how important marriage is," Sean said. "I've (known I am) gay since I was a teenager. Gay marriage was always something that's going to happen in the future, but I couldn't go get one, so it wasn't on the table. All the sudden it was on the table. And I got one. I was like, whoa, I really wanted this the whole time, and I was ready for it, and I just told myself I wasn't because it wasn't feasible."
They believe stereotypical gay culture is filled with superficial relationships. Look at pop culture's gay role models, they say. In "Will and Grace," neither Jack nor Will have meaningful relationships. "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" focuses on fashion and wine but has little substance. Could this superficiality stem, in part, from not allowing gays to marry? And, therefore, is every gay relationship destined to be thought of as temporary?
"When we got married, I realized that made me an adult," Sean said. "Abruptly. ... And now I realize that probably has a strong influence upon what we call gay culture, the fact that it's comprised of people who don't consider themselves adults."
"You treat children like children," Tim interjects, "they're going to behave like children. If you treat them as adults and you expect things of them - it's totally an argument of what you expect out of someone. If they've never been expected to get married, they aren't going to. It's pretty harsh social conditioning."
But there's another thing. Because they're gay, they always have felt different from the mainstream. But they never felt part of stereotypical gay culture. They aren't artistic, they aren't bohemian, they don't identify with "Rent."
They've never had gay role models.
So part of what they want from their newfound status is to show a positive example for young gay men who feel lost, like they once were.
"Hopefully, someone reads this who is in the situation I was in," Tim said. "Someone who isn't sure about themselves. They don't think they'll be accepted by everyone. I'm not casting myself as an ideal role model. But I think there's some good out of letting people know our story."
They don't sound like "silly college kids" to me.
Pair reflect on months as married gay couple [des moines register]
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Posted 10:29 AM EST by Andy Towle in Gay Marriage, Iowa, News | Permalink
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They're sorely in need of a Remedial Sondheim Class. Someone send them a set of Proust ASAP.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Jan 21, 2008 10:36:28 AM
Awesome follow up. Well done.
Posted by: FASTLAD | Jan 21, 2008 10:53:49 AM
WOW, these "silly college kids" are VERY well spoken and full of wisdom.
"You treat children like children," Tim interjects, "they're going to behave like children. If you treat them as adults and you expect things of them - it's totally an argument of what you expect out of someone. If they've never been expected to get married, they aren't going to. It's pretty harsh social conditioning."
That is so profound and so well stated.
With ANY oppressed minority, if you treat them like naughty children and push negative stereotypes onto them they will surely live down to the expectations and adopt the stereotype, even when it doesn't come naturally to them. This is why oppression is dependant on bigots loudly and constantly beating the shame and defame drum.
Keep speaking truth to power. A word of advice from an old married man who has been in this fight for a while: Keep fighting for the common good but put YOURSELVES and YOUR RELATIONSHIP FIRST. If your fight for social and civil justice destroys your relationship the cause will suffer but you will suffer an even greater loss. "The cause" means nothing if the fight for it destroys the very thing one is fighting for.
You'll be in my thoughts and prayers.
Rock on brothers!
Posted by: ZEKE | Jan 21, 2008 10:57:01 AM
Vertical blinds are still all the rage in Iowa. Trust me, I know this.
Posted by: cb | Jan 21, 2008 10:57:19 AM
It's terrific that these men will be role models for a younger generation. I appreciate the social significance and applaud their efforts. Others can play with vertical blinds and fret about Sondheim. BTW, Stephen, Walter or Robert?
Posted by: Jack | Jan 21, 2008 11:30:17 AM
Words of wisdom from Sean/Time and Zeke to consider. Thanks guys! The community needs more folks like the three of you and less of those bickering fools in the Obama/MLK speech thread. Aren't we divided enough? Geez!
Posted by: James | Jan 21, 2008 12:39:55 PM
A honeymoon in Des Moines!? Somebody send those guys two first class tickets to Hawaii so they can do it up right!
On a more serious note, I totally agree with the notion about treating adults like children results in people thinking of themselves as children. These gay marriage bans have got to go!
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 21, 2008 1:32:27 PM
Married since 2003 and I agree with them. Given the garbage we were fed growing up, I never thought it could be possible to be HAPPY as a gay man, never mind HELATHY or LOVED... but MARRIED? Not possible. Now I am, and of course as an "adult" I am on the radar and all my taxes have gone up. SO society benefits financially from gay marriage also. There is not a single loigical argument against it. Not one.
Team Gay Married Iowans!
Posted by: Strepsi | Jan 21, 2008 1:49:26 PM
Same-sex marriage is a bell that cannot be unrung, no matter how much our enemies try.
My lover and I have been together in superficial bliss since 1971.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Jan 21, 2008 2:03:00 PM
This story makes me happy. Yay for them!!!
Posted by: lucas | Jan 21, 2008 2:58:41 PM
No one has commented on the fact that they're playing Guitar Hero, one of the current symbols of average middle class families.
Rock on, guys!
Posted by: RJ | Jan 21, 2008 4:24:01 PM
I don't mean to sound like a monster, and I'm happy that they're happy. But I don't need other people's approval, a marriage certificate, or anything else to know my worth. Other people don't treat me like a child because I don't act like a child. I don't engage in destructive behaviors because I have no desire to.
Again, I'm happy that getting married has brought them bliss. But all people---gay, straight, or otherwise---need to learn not to rely on other people's opinions as their barometer of contentment. Of course, we also have to fight for all our deserved rights, and kick against the pricks who would deny them...but still be happy and mature in the meantime.
Posted by: Paul R | Jan 21, 2008 7:16:56 PM
I just ran across this post on google (some day I should put this site on my rss feed so I get notices as you post stories about us).
In response to everyone one at a time...
David: Neither of us is a humanities major, so naturally we've never read Proust (well Tim's nerdy in that way, so possibly he has and not shared it), I'll be sure to check the cliff notes :).
Fastlad: It was an interesting and terrifying article to be part of. It's a bit terrifying realizing a 2000 word front page Sunday article is being written about your life, luckily it turned out to be a risk worth taking.
Zeke: Thanks for your words of support. To be honest neither of us devoted our public lives to any cause outside of our fields (computer science and linguistics). It's still a bit strange to realize that to a lot of people we're a symbol of gay rights in Iowa. While we do feel that there is a moral obligation on our part to support the cause of same-sex marriage since we've benefited from the work of other braver people, neither of us is particularly keen on derailing our lives or our relationship in the process.
CB: We rent, they aren't ours. Yes, they are pretty ugly. On the other hand I have no idea what else I'd put up over a window that size for cheap (see: poor college students compounded by the fact we're both nerds). More embarrassing is the feet of Spike from the Cowboy Beebop poster behind us :).
Jack: It's always been my life goal to attempt to be a role model by being the best person I could. I never expected I'd get a front page story talking about it. Thanks for your support.
James: I think I walked into something mid-discussion. Thanks for your support, and remember the best way to raise the level of discourse is to never point fingers at the other side!
Peter: See, poor college students. Please don't send us cash though. We talked about this, and though we realize we could probably ask a lot of people to give us money, it's radically unethical and we'd feel dirty so we aren't accepting gifts from non-family/friends.
Strepsi: Yes. Marriage is so important in ways that are really impossible to communicate to bachelors. At risk of offending atheists, it's clearly a religious experience (not even starting on the laws that are tangled in with it). "It changes everything" is really and understatement.
David: I can't agree more, it's just a matter of time until every other willing couple is afforded the opportunity we were.
Lucas: Yay!
RJ: Our apt. is really boring, and the cameraman couldn't find any good shots so we settled on that. He also took some shots of us on the couch but we failed at posing. Then we had to play with dinner so he took pictures of us in the kitchen (choice comment, "Oh god this is so metrosexual, I don't know if I want to be cooking in the paper for this article"). Finally we - out of ideas - pretended to play the game while he took about 40 shots of us. Apparently, one of them turned out semi-not horrible!
Paul: This is fine, and you can do as you please. However, don't hold a moral high road. My life was very complete before I was married. Now my life is more complete. I'm not a tool who has been waiting my entire life to get married - I spent a great deal of time developing myself into a very respectable person before I even met Tim. I'm assuming by the tone of your comment that you're not married, but if you get married you'll likely find that it changes your expectations of yourself in ways that you wouldn't expect (I say this is likely because all my married friends agreed with this sentiment). As I said earlier, the phrase "This changes everything," isn't written that way for no reason.
And, I'm out. Thanks to everyone for your support and comments and keep up the good blogging!
Sean
Posted by: Sean Fritz | Jan 28, 2008 6:27:38 AM