Petrelis Files

(On the left, Lewis, leaning against his hubby Clark.)

Lewis & Clark: First CA Married Gays in
New York Times' Wedding Pages

Lewis Kerman and Clark Traftron, queer pioneers crossing over new political and societal territory, got hitched last week in California, and their wedding announcement in the New York Times is the first such notice for the paper of record since gay marriages began last week in this great state.

The Times didn't mention where Lewis and Clark reside, but I tracked them down at their home in Palm Springs, and spoke with Lewis over the phone about breaking new ground in the gay marriage equality battles, and at the Gray Lady.

He said they were quite elated to be the first married California gay couple to appear in the wedding and vows section of the paper. Lewis told me his partner Clark has a gay relative, and the relative and his companion tied the knot at their ceremony, making it a double wedding. Aw, is that too precious, or what? It's great to learn details like this, things that don't make it into the Times' announcement, but greatly expand humanizing the gays saying "I do."

I offered Lewis, his husband, and the other now-married gay couple, congratulations and best wishes for the future. With joyful enthusiasm flowing over the telephone wires, Lewis thanked me for calling. His final comment to me was a wish to beat back the ballot initiative seeking to amend the state constitution to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. I join him in hoping pro-gay forces rule on election day in November.

Congratulations, Lewis and Clark!

From the Times:

Lewis H. Kerman and the Rev. Dr. Clark Gregory Wright Trafton were married on Friday morning at the Riverside County Clerk’s Office in Indio, Calif. Yvonne Cruz, a deputy commissioner of civil marriages, officiated.

Mr. Kerman is 55. He retired as dean of the undergraduate business program of Rutgers in Newark and now is an adjunct professor there for the executive M.B.A. program. He teaches the same program in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. He graduated from Yale and received an M.B.A. and a law degree from Rutgers . . .

Mr. Trafton, 73, is a retired Episcopal priest and psychoanalyst who was interim rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Heights, Queens, from 2002 to 2005; he held the same post from 1995 to 1999 at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan. He was also on the staff of the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute in Manhattan. He graduated from Iowa State University, from which he also received a master’s in mathematics. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, an Episcopal seminary in California . . .