Bridal magazine promotes homosexual weddings

Taking its cue from the New York Times, which recently decided to publish notices of same-sex ceremonies along with its wedding announcements, the September-October issue of Condé Nast's Bride's magazine features an article promoting homosexual weddings.

The New York Times reports the article, entitled "Outward Bound" outlines developments in same-sex ceremonies, shares comments from "gay" and lesbian couples about why their unions should be publicly recognized and offers tips on guests attending the nuptials.

"We looked at what was happening in the wedding industry," Millie Martini Bratten, the magazine's editor in chief and the editorial director of Condé Nast's Bridal Group, told the Times. "We were hearing from various retailers that same-sex couples had become an important part of their gift registries ... and we were answering more readers' questions: 'If two women were getting married, what's the appropriate attire?'"

Established in 1934, Bride's is the oldest and largest wedding magazine. Its website touts the publication as the "must-have guide for the newly engaged."

According to Condé Nast, the article has not generated any adverse advertising reaction. Editors at other bridal magazines will likely jump on the band wagon, should that remain the case.

"A story like this really energizes the gay and lesbian community," the Times quotes Cathy Renna, news media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, as saying.

While homosexual marriage is not legal in the United States, Vermont has a civil-union law that allows couples to register and receive most of the benefits and rights of married couples without calling it marriage. Earlier this year, California's state Assembly passed a historic bill that would award virtually all the rights of marriage to homosexual "domestic partners."

Thirty-seven U.S. states have passed laws that bar them from honoring same-sex marriage from another jurisdiction. However, in Massachusetts and New Jersey, homosexual couples have filed lawsuits, and some analysts believe if a marriage license were issued in one of those states, it would have to be recognized in all others under the U.S. Constitution's "Full Faith and Credit Clause."

Public acceptance of "gay" marriage has increased in recent years, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The survey of 2,002 adults taken between June 24 and July 8 found 53 percent of respondents said they opposed "gay" marriages, while 38 percent said they approved of them. This compares to 1996 poll findings of 65 percent opposed and 27 percent in favor.

There is something disturbing about this subject and it is not the subject itself so much as the human dynamics that currently drives it.

I am willing to concede that it is possible that 2100 years of Christian history and 6000 years of recorded history has left a genetic memory in me that unfairly prevents me from seeing the "goodness" in change of any kind.

But it's not that simple; this "survey" gives me a clue.

Reading the title of this post induced a series of negative responses in my mind. One liners incisively to garnish the self-destructive nature of the story, instinctively assuming that the nature of Brides creates a chasm that no amount of good intentions or charitable impulses can span. At least not in my mind.

It deals with the nature of consensus; of give and take; of the social contract in its most abstract form.
In the very nature and meaning of words that have since time began and since man has become civilized, meant something specific and real and important. Words like tolerance, acceptance, nobility, charity, good and evil.

As most of us have, I also have had many discussions over my life as to the inherent nature of man.
Most of my life I have been solidly on the side of inherently evil, subject to accomodation in order to satisfy the demands of the social contract and of conscience, so far as it can influence us to a lesser or greater extent.
What struck me finally about this event is that the "poll" seems to be a smooth, shiny mirror reflecting good intentions, hanging on a rotting and crumbling wall, leaving no room for gray, only black and white, and it implicitly bludgeons me to choose one side or the other.

No middle ground is allowed.

The stark contrast between the concept of tolerance and the personal involvement of charity and the idea of free will is no longer a human choice. It has become a commodity, dispensed by law, dictated by unseen spirits somewhere about whom I have no clue, but which I resist with every fiber of my being because I insist on going to my grave still grasping that absolute belief that we are different from animals.

We are all imperfect. We all have flaws which affect society. Fortunately, we all do not rearrage the universe to accomodate our flaws, and do not insist that the laws of reason or language be reshaped to make us feel better about ourselves.

The story is not yet done. The world has gone mad, but still there can be souls which, without bitterness, or the need to lash out, can choose the other path.

Bride's Magazine gave one - and only one - page to the topic of same-sex weddings. The illustration was two of the wedding cake bride dolls together, not of people modeling the latest expensive bridalwear.

Considering that Bride's magazine is a sort of one-shot publication, in the sense that most subscribers are young (or not-so-young) women who subscribe for only a year or two and drop their subscription as soon as they get hitched, you could honestly say that Bride's Magazine promotes weddings in general, since it absolutely depends on them for its existence.

And it's the weddings, not the marriages or elopements or living together, that Bride's Magazine promotes, since its entire purpose is to promote wedding dresses, bridesmaid's shmatas, rings, and other expensive ceremonial knicknacks.

By giving at least a nod to same-sex ceremonies, the magazine has reached out to a significant portion of the population that (sometimes) has wedding ceremonies but which previously it hadn't had as customers.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.