DAILY MEMO: :

Ceremony spiked as debate swells over how gays should celebrate law

Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Letter: Gay or straight, give couples same rights (10-6-2009)
It isn't marriage, but partners now have rights they've long sought (10-1-2009)
78 couples pre-file for domestic partnership rights (8-24-2009)
State to begin taking domestic partners forms Monday (8-18-2009)
Domestic partners must wait for coverage (7-10-2009)
Board extends coverage to domestic partners of state employees (6-20-2009)
Power, luck, finesse bring gay rights win (6-5-2009)
With veto override, domestic partners bill becomes law (5-31-2009)
Gibbons' veto of rights for gay couples appears safe (5-28-2009)
Search is on for votes to beat Gibbons' domestic partner veto (5-27-2009)

Earl Shelton, associate publisher of a local gay publication, accepted an invitation from the Erotic Heritage Museum to celebrate the effective date of Nevada’s landmark domestic partnership law with a commitment ceremony honoring his nine-year relationship with his partner.

Nevada lawmakers passed Senate Bill 328 this spring and it went into effect Oct. 1. Shelton and Richard Kuta were to be the first couple to “walk down the aisle,” according to news releases sent out that week. Though they had not written vows or planned to exchange rings, the couple had agreed to do whatever was arranged by the event’s planners.

But on the day of the ceremony, Shelton backed out as the gay community found itself in a heated debate about how to represent itself to mainstream media.

The problem with the ceremony, opponents say, is that it was slated to be held in a wedding chapel at the museum, led by an Elvis impersonator in the company of drag queens dressed as nuns, and would include a drag queen jumping out of a wedding cake and the serving of erotic cupcakes.

Not only was it planned as a sexually charged event, said Candace Nichols, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, but it was also being presented as a marriage — and domestic partnership is not the same as marriage.

Strong feelings emerged, leading to a last-minute meeting, a flurry of phone calls across the gay community, Facebook rants, and accusations that gays were policing the actions of other gays. Some worried that negative media attention could overshadow this weekend’s National Equality March in Washington, D.C. The issue of the Las Vegas “squabble,” as it played out online, was even addressed by national gossip blog Gawker.com.

“A lot of people worked very hard for the passage of this bill,” Nichols said. “Equality and who we are as gay people is not about whom we sleep with, but whom we choose to spend our life with. Some couples may have a ceremony, but they’re not going to send out a news release. That (ceremony) was over-the-top Las Vegas. I don’t think it was the imagery that we wanted to use to project who we are as a community.”

As the gay community very publicly fights for equality, how it presents itself is a big issue nationwide, and last week’s kerfuffle brought it home to Las Vegas.

Local blogger Steve Friess said he was “embarrassed by Vegas gays” for participating in the event, pointing to “the obvious and humiliating PR disaster in the making for those who hate the gays and seek proof that we’re all just a bunch of sex-crazed, debauching, godless cross-dressers.”

Lynn Comella, assistant professor in the women’s studies department at UNLV, said the incident highlights complicated and long-standing debates within the gay community about the relationship between positive images and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender politics.

“As the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community has moved from the margins into the mainstream over the course of the past four decades, many GLBT activists and writers have argued that mainstream acceptance and political gains are contingent on assimilationist strategies that emphasize just how similar gays and lesbians are to their heterosexual counterparts,” Comella says.

“It is no longer simply a question of ‘visibility,’ but a matter of what kind of visibility will come to define the GLBT community. Images of flamboyant drag queens and dykes on bikes have been replaced by sanitized and often desexualized images — Ellen DeGeneres, for example. Those images of gay life tend to be seen as nonthreatening, thereby offering reassurance to uneasy heterosexuals that gays and lesbians might in fact be ‘just like them’ and therefore deserving of greater political and legal rights.”

Elvis impersonator Jesse Garon, who was to conduct the ceremony, says gays should celebrate their uniqueness: “Gays love a parade. We love a party. We do it with flair. That’s what makes us unique. A dignified ceremony would not have changed anyone’s mind.

“They used fear, intimidation and misinformation to dampen the event. That’s what straight people try to do. They try to tell gays whom they should marry and how. This whole thing was based on the fear of what the media was going to say or do.”

Shelton said the cancellation had nothing to do with the criticism, that he would have canceled if it had been planned as a traditional chapel ceremony because a public ceremony would not help move Nevada forward in full marriage equality.

“We wanted the press there and we wanted to acknowledge that this was a significant step forward. But what started out as a ceremony at the museum snowballed into this party with so many elements, and there was a misconstrued vision that this was going to be a marriage, especially in information sent to the media.”

Shelton says he and Kuta will hold a private ceremony in the spring. The Erotic Heritage Museum went ahead that night with heterosexual ceremonies. Some, such as local entertainer J. Son, who had arranged Shelton’s ceremony, are lamenting the fact that the moment was not celebrated with a gay ceremony: “We missed out on a historic opportunity.”

Discussion: 21 comments so far…

By nednougat

10/9/09 at 6:34 a.m.

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Don't forget that every other Wednesday is Underwear Night at the Eagle on Tropicana. We're going to discuss domestic partnerships next week, as well as our hopes for true marriage for GLBT's in the 21st Century. Hope to see you there. Remember, newcomers drink for free.
By afveteran

10/9/09 at 7:09 a.m.

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God is not watching the perversion and the aberrated behavior of the debauched percentage of people on the planet, those that want to practice a deviated lifestyle. God cannot look upon sin. Repent, gays and lesbians, before Jesus Christ returns as the Lion!
By SgtRock

10/9/09 at 7:13 a.m.

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Reid and I are throwing a party to cheer the Nevada Gay Marriage Ban and DOMA that we supported.

We are inviting Nobel Peace Prize (life is so funny) winner, Obama, who is also against gay marriage and doing very little to reverse DOMA or Don't Ask Don't Tell.

But we did not invite that Obama Czar dude who praised the guy who is heads over heels in love with NAMBLA (you know the organization that promotes adult males having sex with young boys). We thought that was too much.

Do you want an invite to our party?
By chooch

10/9/09 at 7:46 a.m.

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SgtRock
Which closet is you're party being held? Looks like we have another closeted, repressed, republican gay men. Do your wife and kids know or just your pals from the chat room. Give it a rest. Do you think it's contageous? Are they hurting you? You seem very familiar with NAMBLA?
By chooch

10/9/09 at 7:59 a.m.

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Breaking News:
SgtRock Coming Out Party

When: Today

Where: Outside his closet

Special guests:Larry Craig, ted Haggard, Mary Cheney and the list goees on.

Playing Live: Double Life
By ksand99

10/9/09 at 8:39 a.m.

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Oh here we go again, SgtRock, err, jfNance32, err, Jim F Nance, Jr tries to convince us all about how AWFUL Obama/Reid are on gay rights.

The fly in his ointment? Both Obama and Reid voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the only way to ban gay marriage across the United States.

"But we did not invite that Obama Czar dude who praised the guy who is heads over heels in love with NAMBLA (you know the organization that promotes adult males having sex with young boys). We thought that was too much."

What do you expect from SgtRock other than MORE LIES?

Kevin Jennings has never supported NAMBLA. That's a lie, and shows how desperate the right has become.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2009100...

They are so desperate they have to rely on lies and slander. How weak! You would have to be as dumb as a Rock to believe the republicans.
By Planetearthcalling

10/9/09 at 8:45 a.m.

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I have an idea on how you gay folks in Las Vegas can celebrate the new law.

Like so many of our amigos down here in southern Arizona you can celebrate by putting on a big old cockfight. Heck you can invite Mom, Grandma & Grampa,even the kids. As for Dad, he'll already be there getting his chicken ready.
By SCHNORCHEL

10/9/09 at 8:49 a.m.

Comment removed by staff. Contained an advertisement.
By atdleft

10/9/09 at 9:18 a.m.

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Planet-

Eh... Maybe not. Are cockfights even legal here?

ksand-

Thanks for providing the facts. In fact, Obama has called for the repeal of DOMA. Reid may even allow a Senate vote to repeal DOMA soon. Both have consistently supported civil unions/DP, and I'm sure neither would support the repeal of SB 283. All of Nevada's working families deserve fair and equal treatment under the law.
By KillerB

10/9/09 at 10:55 a.m.

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afveteran, SgtRock/nance and ilk -- here we go again, leftovers from http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct...

What you worship and the dogma attached to it is irrelevant here. Keep preaching away. You're only showing that you're incapable of original thought. And what fools you really are at your core. Expect to be booed off your pulpits.

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" -- John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson,
By Planetearthcalling

10/9/09 at 11:13 a.m.

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KillerB

Democrat presidents have killed far more innocent civilians than the Catholics ever could have, even in a million years.

Untold numbers of civilians were killed during WWII alone by American planes carpet bombing entire cities, turning them into a living hell on a daily basis.
A democrat president unleashed a true living hell by using nuclear weapons on civilian populations, twice.

Yeah so anyway, what was all that about the Catholics killing so many people.
By SCHNORCHEL

10/9/09 at 11:16 a.m.

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How many people can see through the homosexual agenda?

The politicization of homosexuality is an important branch of the Marxist-Gramscian Culture War.

The name of the movement is "Homosexual-ism."

This movement has gradually and stealthily advanced to the stage where "homophobia" is now considered an international crime. This was instigated at the United Nations International Year of the Family in 1994.

Therefore, Homosexual-ism is employed to destroy Western institutions on the way to the New World Order.

This article has cunningly concealed this important and underlying fact.

People who are disturbed about the greatly popularized Homosexual-ism of today should learn to UNDERSTAND what drives this movement.

In that way, they will not REACT to this dialectic.
By Pagan

10/9/09 at 11:41 a.m.

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@SCHNORCHEL

So you allowing Government to dictate the most private aspect of ones life, who they choose to love and marry accomplishes what?

You are allowing Government to violate at will the ultimate rule of law, the U.S. Constitution. You are doing nothing more than allowing your Marxist-Gramscain policies for government to control every aspect of your life. The cunningly concealed movement of a Big Brother Society is what you are supporting and allowing to establish.
By KillerB

10/9/09 at 12:36 p.m.

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"Yeah so anyway, what was all that about the Catholics killing so many people."

Planetearthcalling -- what does your post have to do with what I posted or anything in this Discussion?

SCHNORCHEL -- how is your post relevant to this Discussion about a group of your fellow citzens who have been shut out of the same freedoms the rest of us enjoy? When all the rhetoric and the law is stripped down to its essential elements, they're absolutely entitled to it, and without the requirement of getting anyone's permission to do it. Including yours.
By BarryS

10/9/09 at 1:22 p.m.

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such indignation! such moralizing! and all this from a state that almost went under and merge with California and was saved only by legalizing Gambling, Divorce and Prostitution [BTW all run by the Mob]. If it weren't for looking the other way and accepting others, Nevada would be a part of the Mohave desert preserve in California. So, lighten up already. Try to remember your history and stop making believe what really made this state great. [Hint: it wasn't the common morality of the other states...]
By SgtRock

10/9/09 at 6:55 p.m.

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ksand99.....is either having a reading problem (highly likely) or is a liar (equally possible)

"Kevin Jennings has never supported NAMBLA"...meaning I said Jennings supported NAMBLA.

I never said that (I guess you are either a liar or stupid...You pick).

I said that Kevin Jennings praises a guy, Harry Hay, that supports NAMBLA.

Here is Harry speaking at a NAMBLA conference.

http://www.nambla.org/youtview.htm

http://www.nambla.org/sanfrancisco1984.h...

Obama, Reid and I are throwing, "We are against Gay Marriage" party.

Anybody what to come?

Jennings and his boy loving Harry are not invited.
By SgtRock

10/9/09 at 7 p.m.

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killer8: Expert on the "law" and dogma.

See here.....not once of dogma in this statement of his: "What you worship and the dogma attached to it is irrelevant here. Keep preaching away. You're only showing that you're incapable of original thought. And what fools you really are at your core. Expect to be booed off your pulpits."

Nope...no dogma there.....just pure logic with careful worded response.

You are a kind and intelligent person.

You will go far in law.

Maybe even a judge one day.
By SgtRock

10/9/09 at 7:04 p.m.

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At our party (if you not heard...Obama, Reid and I are throwing a party to celebrate Nevada's Gay Ban on marriage), Obama is going to repeat his speeches on why he is against gay marriage and believes it is a state-by-state choice. Also, he is going to explain why he is dragging his feet on DOMA repeal and changing Don't Ask-Don't Tell.

Reid is who give out his letter where he talks about supporting Nevada's Gay Marriage Ban and then he is going to talk about when he voted for DOMA.

My pals.....Obama and Reid.

(BTW......Harry "NAMBLA Boy lover" Hay and Obama Czar Jennings are NOT invited.)