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| Sex columnist Dan Savage says he didn’t realize his new book would be about marriage when he set out to write it. (Photo by Curt Doughty)
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HOME > SOVO SCENE > BOOKS
By: JAMES WITHERS
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It’s a sentiment not expected from a gay sex columnist, but Dan Savage is hesitant about the whole gay marriage thing.
But before you send any e-mails filled with moral outrage, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Savage supports same-sex marriage. His new book, “The Commitment,” makes that crystal clear as Savage chronicles the issues he and his partner, Terry Miller, struggled with as they tried to decide whether to tie the knot.
“We believe gay marriage should be legal, not mandatory,” Savage writes.
Savage worries that a big, public ceremony would “jinx” their almost decade-long relationship, while Miller isn’t interested in aping heterosexual traditions and doesn’t understand why the couple can’t just get coordinating “property of” tattoos instead. And besides, their young son — despite the best liberal teaching — thinks two boys getting married is gross.
“While we would like to have the legal benefits of marriage, we weren’t planning on flouncing down the aisle with matching tuxes anytime soon,” Savage writes.
“The Commitment” covers how they, with their families, use the occasion of their 10th anniversary to step into a brave new world no one really imagined.
SAVAGE, THE EDITOR of the Seattle alt-weekly the Stranger, sat down to write a book about his family history, but, after the 2004 election, found himself switching topics.
“People tried to pin Kerry’s loss on us,” Savage says in a recent interview. “I sort of refocused the book and squarely met and dealt with what [Terry and I] are going to do.”
Marriage wasn’t something Savage considered as an option when he came out, he says. The world was a different place and there were certain assumptions he made about what would be available to him as a gay man.
“You were leaving a lot at the side of the road so you could kiss boys,” he says. “Suddenly all of those things in the last 10 years have become open to us and available to us.”
Savage sees his new book and 1999’s “The Kid,” about his and Terry’s adoption of their son, D.J., as a chronicle of the possibilities that now are part of the gay world.
“I wanted to document what it felt like to be part of that generation where everything we thought we sacrificed to be gay was suddenly available to us,” he says. “We hadn’t left it at the side of the road.”
Savage also thinks his uneasiness about marriage is because wedding traditions are for straights‑—‑or, more specifically, straight women.
“It’s like an ill-fitting garment,” Savage says. “You don’t know how to totter around in it. We haven’t had this option in front of us for long enough and heterosexual wedding traditions feel awkward because we are not heterosexuals.”
Just like every other religious, ethnic and cultural group that has its own ceremonies surrounding marriage, Savage believes it will take time for gay men and lesbians to have rituals that feel right.
“We have to rethink marriage and how it looks and how it is performed and what the ritual is,” Savage says.
AS “THE COMMITMENT” illustrates, whatever arguments for and against gay marriage Savage and Miller might ponder, it’s their son who finally makes the clearest case.
At first D.J. is opposed to the idea, but Savage recounts an early morning conversation where his son asks questions about marriage, divorce and love. Savage explains that marriage is a promise to stay in love and together.
It’s that definition of marriage that brings Savage and Miller around to their ultimate decision, and why D.J. finally decides he wants his two daddies to do the thing Savage could not fathom as a younger gay man.
“A big part of it was our son,” he says. “Suddenly it meant something to him for his family to reaffirm and strengthen the bond that is holding it together.”
Savage pauses for a moment, smiles and rolls his eyes. Even as a married man (they went to Canada) he still finds it all a bit silly.
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