Partners Task Force - Glass Houses

Archive Version of
Partners Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Couples
Online from 1995-2022

Demian and Steve Bryant originally founded Partners as a monthly newsletter in 1986. By late 1990 it was reformatted into a bi-monthly magazine. Print publication was halted by 1995 when Demian published Partners as a Web site, which greatly expanded readership.

In 1988, the Partners National Survey of Lesbian & Gay Couples report was published; the first major U.S. survey on same-sex couples in a decade.

In 1996, Demian produced The Right to Marry, a video documentary based on the dire need for equality that was made clear by the data from the survey mentioned above. The video featured interviews with Rev. Mel White, Evan Wolfson, Phyllis Burke, Richard Mohr, Kevin Cathcart, Faygele benMiriam, Benjamin Cable-McCarthy, Susan Reardon, Frances Fuchs, Tina Podlodowski, and Chelle Mileur.

Demian has been the sole operator during the last two decades of Partners.

Demian stopped work on Partners Task Force in order to realize his other time-consuming projects, which include publishing the book “Operating Manual for Same-Sex Couples: Navigating the rules, rites & rights” - which is now available on Amazon. The book is based on the Partners Survey mentioned above, his interviews of scores of couples, and 36 years of writing hundreds of articles about same-sex couples. It’s also been informed by his personal experience in a 20-year, same-sex relationship.

Demian’s other project is to publish his “Photo Stories by Demian” books based on his more than six decades as a photographer and writer.

Demian, Sweet Corn Productions, demian@buddybuddy.com

Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples
Demian, director 206-935-1206 demian@buddybuddy.com Seattle, WA Founded 1986

Menu

Notable Events	Legal Marriage Essays	Legal Marriage Data	Ceremonial Marriage	Domestic Partnership
Legal Necessities	Relationship Tips	Immigration	Couples Chronicles	Parenting
Inspiration	Orientation Basics	Surveys	Resource Lists	Citation Information
Welcome (About)	Your Host	Copyright Policy	Link Policies	Search Site

People Who Live in Glass Marriages Shouldn’t
Throw Stones at Same-Sex Marriage
U.S. Legislators Who Supported the Anti-Gay “DoMA” Bill
© 2000, Demian

Even though no state offered legal marriage, positive rulings in Hawaii [See Hawaii Court Finding] regarding the right to marry gave the radical right fears that same-sex couples would be treated the same as opposite-sex couples. The ethically offensive “Defense of Marriage Act” (DoMA) was created in 1996 to prevent same-sex couples from having their legal marriage license recognized by the United States Government. It also claimed that states would not need to recognize a valid same-sex marriage license from another state.

While DoMA did not defend marriage, it did, for the first time, allow the Federal system to usurp the state right of defining marriage law. It also contradicted “Full Faith and Credit” law. [See “Defense of Marriage Act”]

The vignettes below give a glimpse at the kind of relationships maintained by those legislators who fought the hardest to deprive their fellow Americans of their legal and constitutional right to equality.

Hypocritically, they all have claimed that same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriage.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia) Chief sponsor of DoMA. Married Three Times. Bead Beat Parent.
	Caught licking whipped cream off the chests of two women (neither of them his wife). Barr’s second wife, Gail, claims that he began an affair with Jerri Dobbin, while they were married. Barr married Jerri one month after his divorce to Gail in 1986. Gail took Barr to court to gain a modest increase in child support payments. He has also been sued by one of the former wives for refusing to pay medical bills.
Barr on DoMA: “The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit.”
Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) Former Senate Majority Leader. Married Twice.
	Dumped his first wife and child.
Dole on his child: “Sooner or later, you have to make a decision — is the child going to become fatherless? … If you become married to politics, something else is going to suffer.”
Rep. Wes Cooley (R-Oregon) Married Twice. Liar. Cheat.
	Concealed his wedding date so his new wife could keep collecting benefits as the widow of a veteran. He falsly claimed to have served in Korea, and was also convicted of falsifying VA loan applications.

Rep. Enid Greene (Waldholtz) (R-Utah) Divorced. Liar.
	Divorced her husband after he was accused of falsifying her campaign finance reports. Greene claims she was deceived by her husband, but campaign workers testified she was repeatedly warned.

Rep. Bob Dornan (R-California) Divorced. Wife Beater.
	Subject to four divorce actions from his wife who claimed he beat her. In June 1966, Dornan was found guilty of a “violent attack” on his wife and was ordered to go to jail, though police records do not show him actually serving any time.
Dornan: “Don’t use the word gay unless it’s an acronym for ‘Got AIDS Yet?’ ”
Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) House Speaker. Divorced Twice. Adulterer.
	One-time presidential hopeful Visited his first wife in the hospital following her operation for cancer, requiring her to sign divorce papers. Later, his first wife took him to court to get him to contribute to household bills. He has admitted to adulterous affairs in the back seats of cars. In November 1999, he had dumped his second wife to take up with a much younger woman with whom he had been having an affair during his marriage.
Gingrich on his first wife: “She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the president’s wife.”

Return to: Partners: Table of Contents

© 2022, Demian
None of the pages on this Web site may be reproduced by any form of reproduction without
permission from Partners, with the exception of copies for personal, student, and
non-commercial use. Please do not copy this article to any Web site.
Links to this page are welcome.