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Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages

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Courting Equality is a glossy, large-format work, but to call it a coffee-table book is to do it an injustice. The text and photographs tell the mesmerizing story of the fight for marriage equality in Massachusetts. The book is at once a celebration, a history, and a reminder that we are all still writing a final chapter.

Whether you live in Massachusetts or elsewhere, you will find much in the volume to inform you about one of the hot-button issues of our time. The book opens, after an introductory overview, on the day of the Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health decision that legalized same-sex marriage. The authors take us through the initial reactions of Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney on the case, and the seven plaintiff couples as they hasten to the press conference.

The next chapter brings us back to the early days of the LGBT civil-rights movement in Massachusetts, where the state helped set a trend for the nation. This is not intended to be a complete history of the fight for same-sex marriage, however. It is in fact greatly educational to read a history that eschews overviews and details the ups and downs within a particular state. The tale reads in part like a suspense novel, full of political machinations.

This is more than a story of politics, however. Throughout the work, we hear the voices of regular LGBT citizens and their allies. The last chapter is a celebration of the first same-sex wedding ceremonies. The authors place us in line with the first couples waiting to wed on May 17, 2004, and convey the giddy atmosphere that prevailed. They tell us the wedding stories of the seven Goodridge plaintiffs and many others besides.

Even if you do not read a word of the text, the photographs alone make this a volume worth keeping. Humphries, who has captured images of the LGBT-rights movement over the past 25 years, shows us legislators and lawyers at work, activists on the march, couples in love, and families celebrating. It is photojournalism at its finest.

The volume takes us almost to the present, when the constitutional convention in January 2007 gave initial approval to placing a DOMA amendment on the ballot. The legislature now has to pass the amendment again before it can go to the voters in 2008. Marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts still hang by a thread. Reading Courting Equality, however, will tell you why they are needed. Buy it for yourself, your family, and friends, and ask your local library to stock it. These are words and pictures that need to be shared.

Lavish in prose and photography, COURTING EQUALITY presents the struggle to equal rights in marriage by Massachusetts' gay and lesbian community. Beyond the obvious, and above the gloss of Marilyn Humphries' stunning photo journal, Patricia A. Gozemba and Karen Kahn offer the reader a journey through worldwide discrimination which bends a bit as same sex couples arrive on the page grasping that one little piece of paper that unbars so many doors. These couples are sometimes both in wedding gowns or both in tuxedoes or anything else that expresses the joy of the moment, and Humphries, Gozemba, and Kahn order the rise of this movement in a powerful narrative that's hard to put down. I am happy to see Kahn and Humphries working again together for I so fondly remember their collaborations at Sojourner The Women's Forum during that publication's heyday late last century. I assume Gozemba has rallied this writer and this artist and added her own pizzazz to the endeavor. Huzzah!!! Good reading for anyone.

I'm a long-time admirer of the photography of Marilyn Humphries, whose political conscience and capacity to connect deeply and unobtrusively with her subjects place her in a very special class of her art. I'm also a heterosexual male who had quietly been part of the majority of Americans who favor, in principle, the right of every adult couple to marry. But this magnificent book has turned me into an activist who will stand up at every proper opportunity and fight for that right alongside the many courageous individuals who have worked for it by themselves until now. The concrete story of that fight (superbly written by Ms. Gozemba and Ms. Kahn) sweeps away a merely abstract understanding of what has been happening. A detailed history of the legal fight in Massachusetts is riveting. But if that isn't enough for some who still question the right of an adult to marry, then they will have to search their feelings as they look at Marilyn Humphries' photographs of the seven couples who won Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, photographs that often include their children, neighbors and pets. I was profoundly moved and inspired by these individuals (whom I will certainly never meet in person). I was reminded that everything we call a "human right" is the result of great struggle, and I was also encouraged that those who persevere do so for all of us. And yes--this book is magnificently produced! It should be owned and circulated by every American who believes our country needs to continue its self-examination and willingness to advance.

While reading Courting Equality it became clear to me that the photos and the prose each could stand alone as a book-length work on the struggle for the civil right to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. Together they present a powerful documentation of the latest civil rights struggle in the commonwealth and a blueprint for civil rights activists engaged in any battle for their rights.

Marilyn Humphries' photos document 25 years of the struggle and represent both the personal and political helping the reader to understand how it touched the lives of individuals and families in Massachusetts. Gozemba and Kahn, clearly inspired by the photos, write the story of the struggle as both personal and political history. As I read about the day the decision was handed down I felt like I was reading over Mary Bonauto's shoulder as she first read the decision on the steps of the court, and I felt like I was with each couple as they heard the news and headed to Boston for the press conference held by GLAD later that day to announce the decision.

The book goes on to document the details of the history of the struggle - the political strategy, legal wrangling, and activism that lead to the decision and to its implementation - with clarity and brilliance that neither minimizes the complexity of the process nor complicates it. Finally the authors document the impact of the decision on the personal lives of some of the first couples married in Massachusetts and their families. Their joy, love, and commitment to each other and to the struggle are apparent in both the photos and in the prose.

This is a page-turner, very hard to put down once you start looking at the photos and reading even a little of the text. It also is beautifully designed and laid out. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the struggle for equality and the workings of democracy.

What could be more uplifting than to read a tale of seven courageous couples who took a public stand on what they believed and changed the course of history in Massachusetts? Karen Kahn and Pat Gozemba, in Courting Equality, chronicle the history of the LGBT movement leading up to 2003 landmark decision allowing same sex marriage. Don't look for a drab, preachy treatise on how the law was passed, but rather sit back and enjoy reading an informative, thought provoking, well written novel that unfolds like a well wrought mystery. Couple that with the extraordinary photos of Marilyn Humphries and you'll rejoice with the authors and photojournalist in a colossal celebration of the long overdue justice, equality and fairness finally accorded to same sex couples who simply want to live their lives as a family.

Courting Equality is a book that will forever remain on my coffee table. Not only because the essays and moving, the photos beautiful and sometimes painful reminders, but because it is a piece of my history.

I remember the foster care debate; I walked the final version of the Gay and Lesbian Civil rights bill around the State House for signatures. I remember the press conferences, the AIDS rallies... I remember thinking GLAD and the Goodridge plaintiffs were wonderfully idealistic and completely out of their minds.

Each photo, each essay serves as a tool to teach my kids about before and after. How people fought hard and believed against all odds in demanding change. They can also pick themselves out of the back row on the first anniversary photo in front of the State House steps. The book is personal and up close. It brings tears to my eyes every time I open it.

I can believe we won.

Over time, many books will be written about the historic changes that occurred in Massachusetts in 2004. Scholars will debate and publish different views. This book? This is one for the heart. It is for anyone and everyone who cares about the movement.

Courting Equality, with touching and accessible prose by Pat Gozemba and Karen Kahn, and riveting photos by Marilyn Humphries, will certainly influence public opnion on the issue of same-sex marriage. This books makes very clear through both a detailed review of history and touching personal stories how the fight for marriage equality in Massachusetts has prevailed: through committed activism around the idea of equal rights for all. The family stories and photos of committed couples who love each other is at the heart of the story and the reader cannot be unaffected by the joy that marriage brings to their lives. Anyone interested in understanding the latest battle for human rights and dignity should read this book. The prose is page-turning and the photos will bring the story to life.

Want to see democracy at work? Courting Equality eloquently tells the story in brilliant photojournalism and gripping prose of how the LGBT community and its allies in Massachusetts continue to struggle on to preserve the civil right of same-sex marriage. Since the day the Goodridge decision came down on Nov. 18, 2003, Marilyn Humphries was there every step of the way documenting this remarkable victory. Her photo of GLAD attorney Mary Bonauto reading the decision on the court house steps is just the tip of the iceberg of this heroic story told in words and photos. While the book is rich in the history of the movement, Kahn and Gozemba know how to tell a story and keep a reader's interest. I'd give it five stars plus.

While Courting Equality rigorously details the specific and suspenseful political machinations surrounding same sex marriage in Massachusetts, it also powerfully illuminates the universal human right to create family and community by focusing, with respect and warmth, on the real lives of the people involved in the battle.

Kahn and Gozemba's insider history is written with the clear-eyed, balanced precision of veteran activists, who know first hand the arduous and messy process of democratic change. But the authors also bring a remarkable, sparkling intelligence, wit and optimism to their subject that's infectious and inspiring. Humphries' photographs are in the best tradition of "decisive moment" photojournalism, putting the viewer at the heart of the action, and beautifully capturing the objective realities and emotional nuances of her subjects.

Courting Equality is both rigorous and poetic-- and vitally important as a document of an exhilarating moment in the long struggle for equal rights. It comes at a time when progress has been made, but so much remains to be done, and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for so many hang in the balance. It is a both blueprint for action, and a love letter to the brave people who challenged themselves, and an unjust system, to take the next step in creating a better America. It will resonate deeply with anyone who cares about equal rights, positive political change, and finally, the liberating power of love. Highly recommended.

About 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Massachusetts since 2003, when that state's Supreme Court handed down a decision that made such unions legal in the state. Since then, the state legislature has rejected several attempts to reinstate a ban. This wonderful book is about the civil-rights struggle waged by LGBT activists in Massachusetts and the celebrations that followed the court decision, beautifully told and illustrated.