The truth about life at any time is in the details we share and remember. Even a cursory look at Courier-Journal wedding and engagement announcements over the years shows how things have changed and serves as prelude to even more changes to come:
In the 1920s, the notices were spread throughout a section of the newspaper, polite titles used in headlines for women, full names for men; the small stories about the weddings included names of out-of-town guests and members of the wedding party, where the reception was held and where the couple honeymooned. (My favo-rite matrimony-related headline in a 1924 paper was, ”Island Beau-ties Prefer to Die Rather Than Unite in Marriage,” but that’s another story.)
Skipping ahead to the 1950s, young women’s sorority affiliations were mentioned in engagement announcements that did not reflect their area of study or career orientation. Wedding pictures were exclusively of brides wearing veils. And the brides were, so far as I could tell, exclusively as white as their gowns. This was not an accident: engagements were deliberately segregated according to race and social status.
All this changed in the early 1970s, and by then the engagement notices weren’t mentioning sorority or fraternity memberships. They could have been spoken by Jack Webb, so stripped were they to just the facts. Wedding announcements still listed ushers, groomsmen, bridesmaids, maids of honor and sometimes ring-bearers. But any semblance of festive announcement was a thing of the past.
All of which is getting to this point:
On Sept. 22, a ”Celebrations” page debuts in the Features section. It will be an advertising product rather than a page produced by the news department. Which means — as it was with last year’s move from free to paid obituaries — people who want to spread their good news will pay for it. They’re calling it ”your love, your words, your way.” (For details of pay rates, see the full-page ad in today’s Features section.)
While some, such as Poynter Institute Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark, say charging for such news ”seems greedy,” others, such as Courier-Journal Publisher Ed Manassah, say the move allows people more latitude in sharing their news.
Manassah points to the ”expanded obituaries” as example. By charging a fee to allow people to say what they want to say, he said, people created ”a whole new flavor and fabric” to the obituaries that is more interesting than the minimalist versions of ”duty copy” previously prepared by the news department.
He believes the same will be true about the Celebrations announcements, which will include births, engagements, anniversaries and weddings.
And, for the first time in CourierJournal history, the announcements can be festive and gay: Same-sex couples will be able to share their celebrations of commitment on the new page.
The news department did not carry gay unions. The marketplace of advertising has brought about this change and so The Courier-Journal joins a growing list of newspapers to add same-sex commitment announcements to their pages.
The New York Times made headlines a few weeks ago for adding such unions to its Celebrations pages, but other newspapers had beat them to the punch. Indeed, if you look at the newspapers offering such announcements (and you can by visiting the Web site of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation at www.glaad.org), you might be surprised by the number of smallto medium-sized newspapers that are — and have been — doing this before the Times decided to join their ranks.
I phoned Charles Broadwell, the editor and publisher of the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, an independently owned paper with a daily circulation of 65,000 which serves Bible Belt and military communities.
One day in July, Rabbi Richard Jernigan came to the newspaper and wanted to have an announcement of his civil union with John Nitzsche printed in the Observer. Though Broadwell said there had been some discussion about what they’d do if that ever happened, there was no set policy. He told Jernigan he’d need a little time to discuss it with some of his staff.
For Broadwell, it came down to evaluating what his Celebrations pages were supposed to be. He concluded they were a community bulletin board where people shared announcements about their lives. ”I was not personally comfortable in refusing it (Jernigan’s announcement),” Broadwell said. ”That would be like saying, ‘We don’t want your type in the paper.’ ”
After sending Jernigan an e-mail (”It’s a go, rabbi.”), the announcement, along with a photo of Jernigan and Nitzsche, appeared in the newspaper about six weeks ago.
For Jernigan, the publication represented both tradition — sharing good news about commitment — and breaking tradition — presenting gay people in a light not often seen in daily news media. He believes that showing gay people in ”day-to-day happenings” will serve to dispel prejudice. ”Yes, we’re different,” he said, ”but we have more in common (with heterosexuals) than those differences.”
Broadwell has weathered criticism as well as enjoyed support. He has handled cancellations of subscriptions and a flurry of national media attention. He says his decision to print gay unions was not about endorsing an agenda or a way of life. It was something simpler. ”We did what we thought was right,” he said.
As for our changes, this old liberal particularly savors the irony that capitalism — spurred by the spirit of doing what is right — has brought about overdue social change to the pages of The Courier-Journal.
It’s the 21st Century, more than time for gay people to be able to express their commitment and love in the same public arena always offered to others, but only recently and sparingly to them.
Just as a look at yesterday’s announcements of celebrations offered snapshots of daily life, so will the details of today’s celebrations show future generations how glacially — but surely — life changed.
