Posted on 05/14/2005 4:54:42 PM PDT by BansheeBill
Gerry Studds among first gays to wed
By KAREN ESCHBACHER
The Patriot Ledger
The first openly gay member of Congress, former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, quietly married his long-time partner one week after same-sex marriages became legal.
Studds and Dean Hara, who have been together since 1991, applied for a marriage license on May 18 and were married in Boston on May 24.
The Rev. Thomas Green, a minister in the United Church of Christ, officiated at the ceremony in his apartment on Beacon Hill., across from the Boston Common.
Although Studds wears a wedding ring, until now the marriage has not been reported. He is the most prominent of the 12,284 gays and lesbians who have married in Massachusetts in the past year.
Studds, a Democrat, represented the South Shore, Cape Cod and Islands in Congress from 1973 to 1996. He was a longtime Cohasset resident.
The couple lives in a $1.4 million condo in Boston's South End, where their neighbors include TV newscaster Natalie Jacobson, sports talk show host Eddie Andelman and former U.S. Attorney Wayne Budd.
Reached Friday at home, Studds and Hara declined comment.
Studds publicly acknowledged he was gay in 1983 after being censured by the House for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page.
A year later, he was re-elected with 56 percent of the vote. He went on to became one of the most vocal gay-rights advocates on Capitol Hill. He sponsored legislation to prevent employment discrimination based on sexual preference, urged the Clinton administration to lift the ban on gays in the military and led funding fights for AIDS research, prevention, housing and treatment.
Studds irked some conservatives in Congress by giving Hara a spousal pin that allowed him access to congressional facilities.
In 1996, not long before he retired from Congress, he gave an impassioned speech on the House floor opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage and gave states the same authority.
Studds and Hara were among 29 couples profiled in the 1997 book ‘‘Men Together: Portraits of Love, Commitment, and Life,'' by Anderson Jones.
Studds turned 68 Thursday. Hara, a financial adviser who specializes in working with gays and lesbians, will turn 48 this month. He worked in the Department of the Interior in Washington before moving to Boston with Studds in 1996
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It's simply precious.
Should read: The Rev. Thomas Green, a minister in the United Church of the anti-Christ, officiated at the ceremony in his apartment on Beacon Hill., across from the Boston Common.
Oopsy, this article let it slip that Studds is a child molester. How is this even possible?
What am I missing here....a time-zone thing?
From the testimony, he plied the kid with alcohol then forced him into sex. Even if there was no alcohol or no forced sex, he gets "censured". Ya think Charlie Manson would like to get a "censure"?
What am I missing here....a time-zone thing?"
In case you weren't aware, homosexuals violate the laws of nature on a regular basis (mostly at night, from what I understand).
Or will it be roast?
..."partner, Dean, whom a great many of you know and I think a great many of you love, is in a situation which no spouse of any member of this House is in," he told his colleagues. I have paid every penny as much as every member of this House has for that pension. But my partner, should he survive me, is not entitled to one penny. I do not think that is fair."
....soooooo social security cannot be inherited; and I do not think that is fair.
Is he hubby or wifey? Is his hubby or wifey better in bed than the underage teenage boy he was having sex with? Sounds like it's time to make him a Senator. Another disgusting scum ball RAT.
I wonder what happended to that young page? If I were him...it would be lawsuit time!
Studds should have been arrested for relations with a congressional page. Oops, he is Democrat and that is his excuse. Chicken hawks from the Bay State are allowed to do anything they want to do.
As Gerry was being censured by his fellow reps in the House, he turned his back on them!
Why wasn't he arrested for statutory rape?
Space-time continuum warped.
Seems to me that "warped" is the right word, too.
This was probably a "shot-gun wedding".
"former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds quietly married his long-time partner one week after same-sex marriages became legal."
Gee, Gerry Studs is interested in a grown-up? When I spotted the headline, my first question was "what grade is he in?"
I found it strangely appropos that these days, Studds parks in the South End, after all his years in DC parking in the rear end.
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