
Love Is Love Is Love... โค๏ธ๐งก๐๐๐๐
Jack Baker + Michael McConnell
Every Pride Month, we celebrate the rebels, the resisters, and the revolutionaries. The loudest are often thought to beโor have beenโthe proudest.
But what about the not-so-loud ones? Someโlike Jack Baker and Michael McConnellโsimply refused to let their love be erased or ignored. Not just same-sex โpartners,โ but true queer pioneers. Till death do they part.
Back in 1970, when being openly gay could cost you your job, your family, even your life, Jack and Michael applied for a marriage license in Minnesota. Not as a stunt. Not for press. But because they loved each other and believed they had the right to marry.
Radical. Simple. Human.
Their request was denied, so they sued. And found a way to get married anyway.
Jack Baker and Michael McConnell are the first same-sex couple in US history known to have obtained a marriage license and have their marriage solemnized. Originally wed on September 3, 1971, their marriage wasnโt legally recognizedโฆuntil 2018.
Their case, Baker v. Nelson, made its way to the SCOTUSโdecades before Obergefell v. Hodges. While the court ultimately dismissed their case, they didnโt give up.
For over fifty years, they have lived as โhusband and husband.โ
Much of that time without fanfare, guarantees, or legal protections.
Just their love, their commitment, and their quiet refusal to back down.
Finally, in 2018, a judge confirmed what they had known all along: their marriage was valid. Jack and Michael didnโt just make history. They lived and loved through it.
Through Pride marches and protests, through activism and AIDS, through dark days and dazzling nightsโthey remained together, married. Proudly if not loudly.
Jack and Michaelโs story isnโt just a footnote in LGBTQ history.
It is LGBTQ history. His + His history.
They stood up for love when standing up for love wasnโt safe.
They challenged a system that refused to acknowledge them.
But they never, ever gave up.
And hereโs the part that gets me every time: Theyโre still married today. Still in love. Still showing up for each otherโboth now well into their 80s.
This Pride, when we chant โLove Is Love,โ letโs remember the couples who said it with their lives, long before we said it with hashtags, memes, and parades.
Thank you, Jack and Michael.
For showing us what love looks like.
And for what Pride can accomplish. ๐ณ๏ธโ๐
Love and light to themโฆand you too, boo!
Clint ๐โ๏ธ
FYC = LGBTQ STORIES + SUBSTACKS
I woke up this morning to discover the delovely and delightful
included me and four fellow queer creators in his latest โQstack Readers Selectโ post.Iโm beyond honored for the love and support. Not to mention the chance to virtually mix and mingle with some favorite (and new-to-me) writers on the platform.
Thank you, MTFโฆfor all that you do, boo!
Clint โค๏ธ๐งก๐๐๐๐
P.S. For those not familiar with MTF or his work, I encourage you to subscribe to Ford Knows AND Qstack. And to support his debut novelโฆLamb: A Novel In Snapshots is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.
COLLIDE PRESS is a reader-supported publication.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber or patron.
Big thanks to all whoโve subscribed and/or supported!
FYC = PAST PRIDE POSTS
ON THIS DAY = JUNE 4
BIRTHDAYS
1866 = Clare Atwood = British artist ๐
1907 = Rosalind Russell = American actor
1917 = Robert Merrill = American actor and singer
1928 = Ruth Westheimer = German-American sex therapist, talk show host, professor, author, and Holocaust survivor
1932 = John Drew Barrymore = American actor
1936 = Bruce Dern = American actor
1944 = Michelle Phillips = American singer-songwriter and actor
1955 = Val McDermid = Scottish author ๐
1956 = Keith David = American actor
1969 = Horatio Sanz = Chilean-American actor and comedian
1968 = Scott Wolf = American actor
1971 = Noah Wyle = American actor and producer
1975 = Angelina Jolie = American actor, filmmaker, and humanitarian ๐
1981 = T.J. Miller = American actor and comedian
1982 = Wu Tsang = American filmmaker, artist and performer ๐
EVENTS
1783 = The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfiรจre (hot air balloon).
1876 = An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in SF via the first transcontinental railroad, only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving NYC.
1919 = The US Congress approves the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women.
1977 = JVC introduces its VHS videotape at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. It will eventually prevail against Sony's rival Betamax system in a format war to become the predominant home video medium.
1984 = Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA.
HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES
PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY
โIf you think youโve hit a false note, sing loud.
When doubt, sing loud.โ
Robert Merrill
I love this post, Clint. Radical. Simple. Human.โค๏ธ๐ฉท๐งก๐๐๐๐ฉต๐๐ค
Thanks Clint, Robert Merrill, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell
Yeah, do it for your people, do it for your pride๐ค๐ค๐๐๐๐๐งกโค
Are you ever gonna know if you never even try?
Do it for your country, do it for your name
'Cause there's gonna be a day when you're
Standing in the Hall of Fame
And the world's gonna know your name
'Cause you burn with the brightest flame