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Gay Marriage Ruling Ended Long Journey Of Soul (Hartford Courant)
Sunday, October 12, 2008
By: Alaine Griffin
For years, Beth Kerrigan tried to talk herself out of being gay. The daughter of devout Irish Catholics, Kerrigan kept her sexuality a secret from her family. She pretended the boys she windsurfed, skied and biked with were boyfriends. If female friends confided in her about their male infatuations, Kerrigan listened, never dishing about her own crush on a female teacher. When Kerrigan's mother found out that Kerrigan was gay, she said she would disown her if Kerrigan didn't "stop" being a lesbian.
Her sister told her not to visit because it would upset the family.
So Kerrigan tried to "cure" herself through book research and therapy. But over time, acceptance found its way into Kerrigan's life. She found a soul mate. Her family eventually came around, accepting Kerrigan's longtime partner, Jody Mock, and their 6-year-old twin boys.
And now, with its historic ruling Friday legalizing same-sex marriage, the state Supreme Court says they can marry.
The much-anticipated ruling said that to deny same-sex couples the protections, benefits and obligations heterosexual couples have in marriage is unconstitutional. Connecticut is the third state to legalize same-sex marriage. Massachusetts' highest court in November 2003 ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed. In May, the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage.
Opponents of same-sex marriages said Friday they will continue fighting despite the ruling.
Although Connecticut enacted a civil union law in 2005, many same-sex couples said it wasn't enough. Kerrigan and Mock did not seek a civil union, which they say creates a "separate and unequal" system they believe is unconstitutional. They wanted to be married.
So, on an August day four years ago, they walked into Madison's town hall and asked for a marriage license.
They were turned away, along with other gay couples, and the battle in the state's judicial system for marriage equality began.
For Mock, 54, who was raised since the age of 10 in San Francisco in a family that encouraged her to be whoever she wanted to be, the snub was the first time she ever felt open discrimination for being a lesbian. The feeling was overwhelming.
"I got a taste of what it must have felt like to be Rosa Parks," Mock said, referring to the black seamstress whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to whites on an Alabama bus galvanized the civil rights movement.
"I got that powerful feeling of what I'm doing today could change history," Mock said.
For Kerrigan, 53, the town clerk's denial was another step in a lifelong and often painful journey for acceptance from others — and herself.
The couple's action thrust them into the spotlight as the lead plaintiffs in Kerrigan et al v. Commissioner of Public Health et al, a landmark constitutional case in which eight same-sex couples sought the right to marry.
They appeared on television and spoke up at rallies. But Kerrigan and Mock, both of whom work in the insurance industry, mostly remained low-key, pressing on with the life they began living together 14 years ago, a life that today centers on their roles as mothers to their sons.
And although marriage always remained a dream, a ruling for or against same-sex marriage would not have made much of a change in the day-to-day life inside their West Hartford home, where bedtime stories, takeout Chinese dinners and watching driveway scooter stunts are at the top of the to-do list.
"Whoa. Oh man, that was spooky," Mock yelled during a recent backyard outing after her son Carlos slipped off his scooter as it went airborne off a small ramp.
"Carlos, if you're going to use the ramp, I want a helmet," Mock said. "OK, honey?"
Kerrigan, who was already on alert for bloodied knees or elbows, put the helmet on her head in a moment of the lightheartedness the couple is known for.
"No, on him," Mock responded, shaking her head.
Carlos and his brother, Fernando, active boys who wolf down dinner so they can return to their yard full of toys, were barely 3 pounds each when they were born in Guatemala. Kerrigan and Mock had been together for eight years when they decided that it was time to raise a family. They waited 18 months for the adoptions.
When word spread, the couple's West Hartford neighborhood welcomed the twins with a surprise baby shower. The idea of gray-haired moms seemed to raise more eyebrows than the fact that they were lesbians.
"People were more taken aback that we had to put on reading glasses to read the cards than they were that we were two women," Kerrigan said.
From there, they joined the fraternity of working-parent jugglers, tending to their family while maintaining successful careers, making sure the boys always came first.
No day illustrates that better than Aug. 23, 2004. Fernando, who was 3 at the time, had a fever that morning. A baby sitter was supposed to care for Fernando, but his parents did not want to leave him.
Problem was, a dozen people gathered that day at Madison's town hall — the place they chose to start the fight to legalize gay marriage — and were counting on Kerrigan and Mock to help them.
So, with Fernando tucked into Mock's arms, she and Kerrigan walked into the town clerk's office. Four years later, although she admits it was a tough day, Mock said she is glad their sons were there for their mothers' mark in state history.
"I think it was more powerful that they were there," Mock said. "Someday, when we look back at this, we can say, 'You were there.'"
It's their devotion to the boys that made Kerrigan and Mock perfect lead plaintiffs for the historic case, said Carisa Cunningham, director of public affairs and education for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based group that filed the Kerrigan lawsuit.
"Beth and Jody are both really grounded people, and they've been in this for the right reasons — for themselves and for their kids," Cunningham said. "They weren't looking for the spotlight."
Through the years, the boys were aware of the cameras and news reporters that came to their door to talk about "love," as their mothers told them. And there were questions sometimes after school. When a classmate told Carlos that "girls can't marry girls and boys can't marry boys," Kerrigan responded to her son's curiosity with the facts.
"I told him it depends on the state you live in," Kerrigan said.
Those questions seemed easier than the ones Kerrigan faced years ago from her family, questions that made her doubt herself. Today, it's difficult for Kerrigan to discuss her journey, but she does — through tears — noting that it's her name at the top of the list of plaintiffs.
As a child, Kerrigan said she was the classic tomboy, riding motorcycles and hanging out with a group of boys she grew up with in New York. The companionship worked. It gave her friends who liked sports and adventures as much as she did. And friends and family would always try to guess which boy she liked.
"I was your classic closet case," Kerrigan said. "And the guys were good cover for me. It would look as if they were my boyfriends."
She kept her secret through high school and took it with her to college, where she hoped to sort through her feelings. She knew it wouldn't be easy telling her parents and siblings, the people she went to confession with every Saturday and attended Mass with on Sundays while growing up, that she was gay. Perhaps she could change her sexual preference. So in addition to her regular college studies, Kerrigan researched homosexuality and reflected on her religious background.
"I was trying to understand what I was feeling," she said. "I was trying to determine if it was sinful, bad, dirty. I wanted to be a good person in God's eyes. I wanted to have a life of honesty, integrity and love."
After college, she moved to Boston, where she dated a hospice nurse. "She was able to open that world for me," Kerrigan said.
But Kerrigan still had questions. She sought more literature, including books about gay Christians. She continued to hide her sexuality from her family — until her mother confronted her about it in a letter when Kerrigan was 33.
Before her mother wrote the letter, Kerrigan had been harassed by a neighbor who was making crank calls to Kerrigan's home in Boston. Kerrigan told her parents and police about the calls. When Kerrigan asked a police officer why the neighbor was doing it, the officer said, "He accused you of something horrible."
"What?" Kerrigan asked.
"Of being a lesbian."Kerrigan believes her mother talked to police at the time, prompting her to write the letter. "She told me to stop it immediately or she would disown me," Kerrigan said. "It was brutal."
Although her father continued to send her cards on her birthday and on holidays, other family members severed their relationships with Kerrigan. Her family was confused and shattered. When she wrote to one of her sisters, the sister wrote back telling her not to visit the family.
"She said to me, 'I can't understand why you would choose that lifestyle over your family.' And I wanted to say to her, 'I'm not doing this to hurt you,'" Kerrigan said. "Now, I understand why I decided not to tell any of them."
She didn't see her family — loved ones she was always close to — for three years.
Without her family's support, Kerrigan questioned her own heart. For years, being called a tomboy didn't bother her — but a lesbian? She was raised to believe that was "a bad, horrible thing" to be called. "I wanted to live a typical life with the husband, the kids, the house," Kerrigan said. "I was guilt-ridden by the fact that I wasn't living the life I was supposed to be living. God knows I tried."
But accepting herself meant reaching out to a family who refused to share in her post-college milestones. Kerrigan's sister said her name wouldn't even come up at family gatherings.
"It's as if you were dead," Kerrigan recalled her sister saying. Despite that, Kerrigan continued to reach out to her mother on Mother's Day and other holidays.
"I never gave up," Kerrigan said.
One day, Kerrigan called her mother to tell her she had bought a home in the Boston area. She wanted her mother to see it.
"She said she would try, but she couldn't make any promises," Kerrigan said.
To Kerrigan, that was a breakthrough.
In her late 30s, Kerrigan was planning to move to the Hartford area for her job. She needed a place to live with her dog, Oliver. At a local café, she noticed a posting on a bulletin board from a woman named Jody who needed a roommate to share her house in Burlington.
They moved in together, and at first, the two women went their separate ways socially. Then, everything changed.
"A simple notice on a bulletin board," Kerrigan said, reflecting on what brought her and Mock together, before she was interrupted by her cellphone's ring tone — Melissa Etheridge's song "A Simple Love." Mock had surprised her with the tone days before.
They have since moved to West Hartford, and today, Kerrigan's mother welcomes Mock and the boys to her home for the holidays.
"I am very thankful because she had the power to do otherwise," Kerrigan said of her mother. "She had to look at something that was very difficult, and I'm thankful. When someone does that, I think it speaks to love."
There are still awkward moments, and Kerrigan still fears people's judgment. She said public displays of affection are not something she does easily.
"I'm naturally keen of who is around and watching," Kerrigan said.
But on Friday, Kerrigan didn't seem to care. When they learned that the state Supreme Court had ruled in their favor, Kerrigan and Mock embraced and kissed — in front of television cameras and news reporters.
Through tears, Kerrigan briefly acknowledged her struggle — and the possible struggle the justices went through in reaching their decision."I struggled personally with my identity, being raised as an Irish Catholic from a large family, and my family did, as well, and it was difficult," Kerrigan told reporters after the ruling. "So I know the journey one goes through in order to open the heart and fight prejudice, hatred, discrimination and fear."
Kerrigan still has the letters from her mother. And rereading them is still painful. She admits that talk of marriage may now open up old wounds for her family.
When she called her parents after Friday's decision to alert them that they might hear about the decision on the news, there was silence on the other end of the line. But Mock said anyone who cannot handle seeing them wed will not be invited to their ceremony.
Mock said they've never discussed the kind of wedding they would have. But at a fundraiser for the gay rights coalition Love Makes A Family, held days after California overturned a ban on gay marriage in May, the couple started to think more about their wedding day.
As she talked about the outfit she was planning, maybe something "flowing" from designer Eileen Fisher, Mock noticed Kerrigan nearby, her hands tucked under her armpits, flapping her arms up and down. Mock joined in the fun, and then set one ground rule for the wedding:
"We are not doing the chicken dance at our wedding," she said.
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