Two wedding ceremonies, but only one legal marriage. After their vows, a straight couple and a gay couple have little in common under the law.
By TAMARA LUSH
Published May 2, 2004
[Times photos: Bob Croslin]
DeAnna and Shane Brawner were married April 10. Their neighbors and friends, Doug McKay and Joe Wilson, held a commitment ceremony two weeks before. But it isn’t the same. Not legally, anyway. And the difference costs Doug and Joe every day.
[Shane and DeAnna Brawner]
TOP: DeAnna and Shane Brawner dance at their wedding reception in New York. BELOW: Joe Wilson, center, helps Doug McKay gather himself as Raymond Stewart watches before their commitment ceremony at King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church in St. Petersburg.
TAMPA - This is a love story.
Shane Brawner and DeAnna Wait are in love. They rent a cozy bungalow on a quiet, narrow street just a few blocks north of downtown Tampa.
Their neighbors, Joe Wilson and Doug McKay, also are in love. They own an identical bungalow next door to Shane and DeAnna.
The two pairs are friends. They eat breakfast together, consult each other on home repair projects and go dancing on Saturday nights.
This year, they planned their weddings, helping each other every step of the way. Doug and Joe held a commitment ceremony March 27, and DeAnna and Shane married April 10.
Two couples, two love stories, two sets of vows.
But this is where the love story changes.
While DeAnna and Shane's courtship and engagement is nearly identical to Joe and Doug's - they fell in love, moved in together and pledged to love their partners forever - their status as couples couldn't be more different.
When DeAnna and Shane got married, society recognized them as a legal, formal couple. More than 1,000 federal, state and intangible benefits were open to them as a married couple, from Social Security survivorship benefits to tax benefits to AAA memberships.
How many of those benefits do Doug and Joe qualify for?
Zero.
1,049 reasons to marry
The disparity Joe and Doug experienced is common to gays and lesbians everywhere and why activists are challenging state laws around the country. Gay and lesbian couples want the same benefits as heterosexual couples, says Karen Doering, a lawyer for Equality Florida.
She cites a General Accounting Office study showing that federal law provides 1,049 privileges and benefits to married couples that aren't available to gay and lesbian couples. Many of those rights involve children and custody issues.
Although Doering and Equality Florida recently sued the state because Monroe County officials would not issue marriage licenses to six same-sex couples, gay and lesbian marriage remains illegal in Florida.
If Joe and Doug lived in Massachusetts, they could get one of the marriage licenses the state will begin issuing to gay couples this month. If they lived in Vermont, they could obtain a civil union license.
But neither license would do them any good in Florida.
Which is why Doering and other gay activists are pressing for full marriage, across the country.
Even after Doug and Joe said their vows in a church - in front of their family, friends and God - society still treats them as legal strangers.
The couple next door
The year was 1999, and Joe was sitting one Monday night with friends at Cityside, a gay bar in Tampa. He spotted Doug, a handsome, younger guy, across the room.
"Every time I would look his way, he would turn his eyes," Joe said.
Joe walked over and introduced himself. They both remember the time - 11:40 p.m. - and that they kissed later that night.
Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel was playing at the time.
"Showers, your love comes in showers/And every hour on the hour/You let me feel your loving power."
Four days after they met, Joe went into the hospital for minor surgery. He experienced some complications and had to stay longer.
Doug never left his side.
Joe was divorced. He had been married for 15 years. He had three older children and introduced them to Doug as soon as possible.
"They took to Doug right away," Joe said. "That's because he's one of the sweetest people on the face of the earth."
Doug, who is 34, is an engineer for Tampa Electric Co. Joe, 45, "makes people's dreams come true" as a master carpenter and expert handyman.
In 2000, eight months after they met, Doug moved into Joe's house on Floribraska Avenue. It's an old bungalow, a work in progress.
Doug bought the bungalow next door as an investment. Even though he helped Joe pay the mortgage on the first house, he could not deduct the mortgage interest because they were not a legally married couple.
In August 2002, a young couple named Shane and DeAnna signed a lease to live in Doug's rental bungalow.
Shane had never met a gay man before that he knew of, and now there were two next door.
But Shane quickly realized something: Joe and Doug were just like him. They all work late hours. He and Joe like any and all breakfast food. Doug and DeAnna are picky about their food. They all are crazy about country music.
"I don't really see much difference between them and us," said Shane, who is 25. "The love they have toward each other is no different than us."
The Yankee and the cowboy
DeAnna saw Shane's truck before she saw Shane.
It was a big, blue Chevy Tahoe SUV with Mississippi tags. Then she saw the hunky guy behind the wheel. He wore Oakley sunglasses.
"I love that boy," DeAnna squealed to her friend.
As it turned out, DeAnna and Shane lived in the same apartment complex in Tampa Palms. She was going to school at the University of South Florida, majoring in speech therapy. He lived in the apartment below her and worked as an underground cable installer and a calf-roper on the rodeo circuit.
DeAnna spotted him outside the apartment building one day, and they exchanged hellos.
Two weeks later, in August 2001, they had "just about moved in together," DeAnna said.
"I sorta never left," chuckles Shane.
DeAnna, who is 28 and from New York state, was thrilled by Shane's Southern charm. At first, Shane was a little puzzled by DeAnna's rapid-fire speech, but he admired her sense of humor and spunky blue eyes.
Jumping through hoops
Doug proposed to Joe during a vacation in Key West.
"It seemed so natural" to plan a wedding, Joe said.
But where to have it? They had been together for about a year when civil unions for same-sex couples became legal in the state of Vermont. That was in 2000.
They thought about traveling to Vermont, but it would have been inconvenient for family and friends. Everyone expected them to have a ceremony, and they didn't want to leave anyone out. So they decided to get married at a gay-friendly church in St. Petersburg, King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church. Doug had worshiped there since he was in his early 20s.
They tried to plan the ceremony for 2002, but one relative after another was having a wedding. Same for 2003. Then, at the end of 2003, Doug and Joe told their families to clear their calendars for 2004.
"Nobody else get married, because Doug and I are getting married in 2004," Joe told everyone.
So were Shane and DeAnna, the couple next door. They got engaged in the summer of 2003. Doug and Joe were DeAnna's first friends to see her engagement ring.
Both couples started planning ceremonies and receptions. DeAnna and Doug swapped wedding invitation magazines.
But in the months leading up to their wedding, Doug and Joe had to get past legal obstacles that never got in the way of their friends. They visited a lawyer - they drew up wills, in case one or the other died. The remaining partner would be the sole beneficiary.
They also signed health care surrogate forms, allowing them to visit one another in the hospital and to make critical-care decisions. Shane and DeAnna would have those rights automatically.
Doug and Joe wanted to make sure everything was in writing, so no family member or court could challenge their relationship.
"We've heard horror stories about other gay couples," Joe said.
It is common for gay and lesbian couples to use lawyers, courts and paperwork to bridge the gaps of marriage.
If same-sex marriage or civil unions were legal in Florida, Doug and Joe would take advantage of such a legal contract. Not only because they love each other, but because it would make life financially better for both. Currently, Joe pays $500 a month for health insurance. As a same-sex partner, he is not eligible to join Doug's health plan through Tampa Electric.
Joe says that he and Doug merely want what straight couples take for granted.
"We're like anyone else who wants to work, pay their taxes, live in a nice house and have nice neighbors," said Joe. "Being gay is not something I wear on my shirt sleeve. Being gay, it's a little part of your life."
Going to the chapel
At King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church in St. Petersburg, Joe and Doug walked down the aisle to Etta James' At Last.
"At last my love has come along/My lonely days are over/And life is like a song . . . ."
All of Doug and Joe's family and friends were there, sniffling and snapping photos and taking videos.
Joe's three children and Doug's mother and stepfather. Old women in flower-print dresses and impossibly stylish young men with spiky hair. Professional men in blue oxfords holding hands.
DeAnna and Shane were there, too. They were one of the few straight couples in the room.
Doug and Joe stood stiffly at the altar, side by side. Doug wore a gray tuxedo. Joe wore a black one. Joe's hair had been freshly cut, a close-cropped silver frame around his face. Doug was beaming, glowing.
The music stopped. The Rev. Teena Carpenter spoke.
"We are present here this afternoon to celebrate the binding in holy union of Doug and Joe," she said.
She read from Corinthians.
"Love is patient, love is kind . . . ."
Doug was shaking.
"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
"Love never fails."
Doug and Joe said their vows. Exchanged rings. Kissed.
"Let it be known that God has joined them together," Carpenter concluded. "And that there is, therefore, no power which can separate them."
Automatic advantages
A week after Joe and Doug's wedding, and a few days before her own, DeAnna nervously wrote a "to do" list:
"Make veil!!" was the No. 1 thing on her list.
No. 2 was already finished: "Make place cards." Doug had helped her with designing the format of the cards, while DeAnna came up with an idea to attach small, silver horseshoes to the paper.
Their wedding had a cowboy theme, a nod to Shane's professional rodeo career.
It was held up north, though, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. DeAnna's large, Catholic family was there, as was Shane's Baptist family.
Joe and Doug flew north for the event. They were the only gay couple there.
After DeAnna and Shane said those "I dos," a host of benefits were automatically conferred upon them:
A portion of each other's Social Security benefits. Access to each other's health care plans. Automatic probate benefits, if one of them died. Rights to adopt a child together. Tax benefits from filing as a married couple. Medicare benefits, the right to take leave from work to care for each other's ailing parents . . . . The list goes on.
Of course, Shane and DeAnna weren't thinking about such unromantic things on their wedding day. They were concentrating on love.
During dinner, Joe approached the newlyweds and knelt down beside them.
"I want you guys to think about the first day you met," he said. "Remember that, and grow together as people and as a couple."
They were happy to hear his advice, because they figured he knows at least as much about love as they do.
- Tamara Lush can be reached at 727 893-8612 or at lush@sptimes.com
