Marriage News Watch

And we won in August of 2010.

Then the Proponents appealed to the Ninth Circuit and we had oral arguments in December of 2010.

And that’s when the case got complicated. Three new questions came up about whether the Proponents had standing, whether we could release the videotapes of the trial, and whether our District Court win needed to be vacated after the Judge disclosed that he was gay.

The standing question went to the California Supreme Court. The other two questions went back to the District Court.

It took most of 2011, but we finally got decisions on all three questions, and now those issues are all going back to the Ninth Circuit.

So the Ninth Circuit will have to rule on all of those issues, either in one big ruling or a couple of small ones…

…plus…

…the merits of the appeal. Our next hearing is happening December 8 at 2:30pm, and we’ll be discussing the issues of video and the motion to vacate.

Then at some point after that, we’ll get a ruling (or rulings) from the 9th Circuit. There’s no timeframe for them to rule, but they don’t usually take too long so a good guess would be early in 2012.

And then that ruling might go to the US Supreme Court. Or it could get appealed again to the Ninth Circuit for a do-over called an “en banc review.”

For an en banc review to happen, one party would have to petition for it. Then the judges would vote on whether to re-hear the case. And then, finally, they’d issue a new ruling. It’s impossible to estimate a timeframe for this, but if it happened, the hearing might be sometime in mid-2012, with a decision later that year or possibly early 2013.

Whether or not the en banc review happens, the case is likely to go to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court could refuse to hear the case. Or they could accept it, in which case they’d have oral arguments and then issue a decision. Oral arguments happen from October to June, so our case could possibly be heard during the October 2012 term. And then we’ll be done, and if the judges rule the way AFER believes they’ll rule, we’ll have full federal marriage equality for every gay and lesbian couple in the country.

We didn’t have role models in those days, because we didn’t know people who had good, equal relationships, men or women. I’m talking about same-sex. And that’s what we wanted.

It was two years because we could actually think of living together. It was just — parents and relatives and friends, how do you explain this?

In those days we never spoke of it. Now we’re talking about it all the time! It’s a totally different world.

I had my first one man show in New York at a New York gallery while I was the VP, Creative Director of an ad agency. Unheard-of. So the New York Times got wind of it and they wanted to write an article about me.

So, um, which I allowed them to do. And this woman, who — and before the interview I said, “Alan, you know, she’s going to ask me something about our living, who I, know what, whatever. My living circumstances.” They wanted to take a picture of me in my apartment, my studio, and all that. And I said, “what do I say when she asks that question?” And we looked at each other and I said “you know, I think I’m going to tell the truth.”

There was this interview and she asked the question. “Do you live here, you know, alone?” And I said “no, I live here, I share this apartment with Alan Shayne, producer for David Susskind.” Well, the article was the — in those days it was almost the entire page. Pictures of me and that statement was in it.

And the next day I went to work at my agency and no one said a word. Not a word. It’s like the article never happened. It’s a big deal. Alan had the same reaction.

No one said anything. Susskind certainly never said anything, and he could have. Anybody could have.

But we realized it was the first time the New York Times had ever talked about two men living together.

Was there a point — or was that the point — where you said, “enough, we’re just going to be out with everyone?”

We never hit people in the head with it. It’s just — the way we’re doing now! We made a decision to do it, and now we’re doing it. And now the butcher in the market comes up and says “I read your book and it gave me goosebumps.” The butcher is reading about our sex lives in a way, you know. It’s very strange.