Petrelis Files

NYT: 3-Person Straight Marriage?;
Gaymarry = Buzzword

(In front, Jessie Fuller and Buck Rodgers. Rear, Will Ferrell. Photo credit: Macall Polay/NY Times.)

Full admission, up front. I was a bit medicated when reading the weddings and celebrations pages of the NY Times today, so when I first saw a photo of three people, instead of the usual couple, I momentarily thought some folks had pulled off a three-person marriage.

The announcement on dead tree proclaiming the marriage between two straight people, Jessie Fuller and Buck Rodgers, included a photo of them with a third person, standing behind them, not quite clear and identifiable to my eyes. I read the notice and learned who the extra person was, and why he's in the picture:

The bridegroom, 28, is known as Buck. He is a production assistant on the film “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell (who made a cameo appearance in the couple’s photo) and Mark Wahlberg, which is shooting in New York.

So the straights are redefining a component to getting married - the official photo for the society pages of newspaper - and they seem to be having fun doing it. The same cannot be said for leaders of marriage equality, who go out of their way to deny that gay marriage is in any way redefining marriage.

In case you weren't aware of it, the Times is quite strict about standards for such photos:

Couples posing for pictures should arrange themselves with their eyebrows on exactly the same level and with their heads fairly close together. Couple pictures should be printed in a horizontal format.

Well, the couple in this case got some of it right. They're positioned properly, but Will Ferrell's eyebrows are not anywhere near the same level as theirs. Nice to see the Gray Lady allowing an occasional redefiinition of proper wedding photo etiquette for her pages.

Also in the Times today, in the opinion section, were the best buzzwords of 2009, including one that might displease the marriage equality leaders who are loathe to use the word gay when discussing gay marriage:

gaymarry, gay-marry

To marry someone of the same sex. Also used hyperbolically to mean to form an unconventional relationship, as in, “I love my new cellphone so much I want to gay-marry it.”

Wouldn't it be just too fab for the Freedom to Marry org to change its name to include this buzzword, and in the process be more honest, about what it is fighting for? I think Freedom to Gaymarry has a nice ring to it, don't you agree?