Interview with PS, History 150 Spring 2021, Conducted by Jolie Smith, March 11, 2021. 

Overview to Interview:

In this interview, PS discusses the way in which America’s changing laws concerning gay marriage have affected his life as a homosexual man. PS tells his coming-out story, describes the many types of marriage licenses he received, and explains the process of adopting his four sons. The interview explores themes of religion, government control of marriage and adoption laws, and family support and structure. In 2003, gay marriage was not legal in any American state, though civil unions and domestic partnerships were legal in some states. In 2004, Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage, though the Defense of Marriage Act prevented these marriages from being recognized in other states. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized marriage in all fifty states. This interview was conducted in March 2021 over Zoom, as PS lives with his husband Aaron and their four sons in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Gay marriage has been legal in all fifty states for six years and the LGBTQ+ community is more widely accepted now.

PS discusses how his homosexuality led him to switch from Catholicism to the Unitarian Universalist church, given that he felt the Catholic views on homosexuality did not match his own (2:56). PS also talks about how he felt his marriage to Aaron in 2002 was no less of a “real” marriage, despite it not being recognized by the state (13:30). Another interesting point PS highlights is the way in which the foster care and adoption systems are contradictory and discriminatory toward same-sex couples (20:21). PS ends the interview by discussing how rapidly public opinion on gay marriage has changed and looks toward a hopeful, more accepting future. 

Biography:

PS is the second-youngest of Joan and David Smith’s seven children. He grew up in a lively and loving household in Connecticut and was raised in the Catholic religion. PS came out as gay a couple of years after graduating from the College of William and Mary; he joined the Unitarian Universalist Church around the same time. In 2002, PS married Aaron in Massachusetts, though the marriage was not recognized by the state. PS and Aaron eventually moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 2004 for Aaron’s job. They then received a Wisconsin Civil Union in 2005 and a Massachusetts marriage license in 2008. PS and Aaron provided foster care for children until eventually adopting Dustin in 2008, Taylor in 2010, and Caden and Ryan in 2014. Because Wisconsin did not yet recognize their marriage, PS had to adopt the boys as a single parent and establish a legal guardianship for Aaron, then eventually conduct a step-parent adoption through a complicated legal process. PS works as a teacher in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and loves going on outdoor adventures with his husband and four sons. 

Transcript:

Jolie Smith 0:00

All right. So welcome. Thank you so much for chatting with me tonight. We’ll just get right into it. So correct me if I’m wrong, but you grew up Catholic. Is that right?

PS 0:11

Yep.

Jolie Smith 0:12

So how did growing up—

PS 0:13

Not only did I grow up Catholic, but I was an altar boy and everything.

Jolie Smith 0:18

Right. So how did growing up in the Catholic faith affect the way that you viewed homosexuality if at all when you were young?

PS 0:27

You know, that’s interesting, because I’ll first say, I grew up in a bit of a different time than it is today, because there was so little exposure to gay people, or anybody who was openly gay. Like when I was growing up, there was nobody who was openly gay, there were like no celebrities, there was just nobody. There was that singer Liberace, but even he never really said he was openly gay. I remember in one of the Summer Olympics, Greg Louganis, the diver, was like one of the first people that actually came out publicly. So I mentioned that to say that when I was growing up, there really wasn’t a gay identity that I was that familiar with. So I don’t think it was deciding whether or not I was gay, as much as I didn’t even really know what that was, because it just wasn’t something that was talked about or familiar. So to your question about church, I would say I was enthusiastically Catholic. I was an altar server, I went to a Catholic High School. In college, I was super into the Catholic Student Association. And I made a lot of great connections there. And I felt very connected there. I don’t feel like Catholicism influenced my view of being gay. But my being gay definitely influenced my view of Catholicism, in that I kind of decided that the two were mutually exclusive. Just because the Catholic teachings were so strongly against it. And I knew, just from my own self and truth and identity, that like, oh, but I’m gay and so this isn’t gonna work. So, I just left the Catholic Church. And I went to the Unitarian [Universalist] Church instead, because they were super open and affirming and everything else. And that’s where I ended up meeting Aaron [PS’s husband]. So it all kind of ended well.

Jolie Smith 2:47

That’s awesome. When did that switch occur? Was it gradual, or one day were you kind of like, I think I’m gonna leave the church?

PS 2:56

Well, again, through college, I was pretty enthusiastically Catholic, because a lot of my friends and connection were through the Catholic Student Association. And then I spent like a year and a half or so living in England after college. And then when I came home, and I moved to Boston, and I was alone in a new city, I was definitely kind of looking for connection and everything else. And church is often a good place to find that. But at that point, I was not really going for Catholic Church just because I kind of knew I didn’t really agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church anymore.

Jolie Smith 3:45

Gotcha. So you talked a little bit about this in your [pre-interview] email, but can you talk about your coming out to your parents, family, and friends? And was everyone accepting initially?

PS 3:59

Yeah, and church plays a factor in this too. So I came out to my mom and dad, you know, Gramma and Grampa. I was living in Boston, and they were pretty full-time at their house in New Hampshire. And so one weekend, I just decided I was going to visit them. You know, it is often a scene at the house, because it’s rare that mom and dad were there by themselves. There’s usually a whole bunch of other hangers-on around the place. But they were just home and they had no plans on this weekend. And I just kind of told them like, “Oh, I’m gonna come up to visit,” which, you know, they’re always delighted by. So I just had this plan in my mind like “I’m just gonna come out to them this weekend.” 

So I remember I took the train up from Boston, they picked me up at the train station. We were just eating dinner. And I was like, “Oh, I have something to tell you guys.” And just kind of laid it out. And they were both great about it. I think, Mom—you can imagine this—but mom was pretty immediately super supportive and asking all sorts of questions and really interested to know things. And dad was a little more… needed a little time to absorb this news. But they were both great about it. So then they drove me back to Boston back to my apartment. And I asked them if they wanted to come to church with me because I was going to this new Unitarian Church. And it was a super gay positive, like lots of LGBT people went there. So yep, they came with me. And then there’s this part in the service where people can kind of get up and just say something has happened in their week. It’s called joys and concerns—like anything they’re worried about, or something to share. So I just got up and kind of announced to the whole church, “Oh, this was a really great weekend for me because I came out to my parents,” and the whole church erupted in cheers. And I was like, “and they’re here over there.” The people in church couldn’t get enough of that, but it was a little much for Gramma and Grampa, they were like, “okay, we’re kind of ready to go.” At that point, though, my apartment in Boston was me and three other gay guys living there. So it was kind of becoming time. Like okay, we can’t go on much longer if you’re gonna be a part of my life without just knowing what’s up here.

Jolie Smith 7:26

Yeah. Did you come out to other family and friends shortly thereafter?

PS 7:35

Yeah, I had come out to a whole bunch of friends before tackling the family. Especially once I moved to Boston, there wasn’t really anybody to come out to anymore, because I was just kind of coming to a new city, like, here I am with my new identity, and no one ever knew any different. So I had already come out to a bunch of friends before that. I remember after I told mom and dad, I did make a point to call Pam [his sister, closest in age to PS] and tell her because she and I have always been pretty close. I think the weekend I was staying with mom and dad, Kathy [his eldest sister] showed up, of course, so I told her directly. But I think everyone else just kind of found out through the grapevine pretty quickly. And this was even before texting was a thing, so this involved people picking up the phone and everything. And I think I was twenty-four I want to say when I came out to mom and dad, and that just seems incredibly late by today’s standards. But again, it was kind of a whole different time.

Jolie Smith 8:55

Yeah. Well, I guess, skipping ahead a little bit—and feel free to add in anything else about your life before this point—but can you talk about your decision to get married in Massachusetts in 2002, even though the marriage was not recognized by the state?

PS 9:14

Yep. Well, Aaron and I had been dating a few years by that point. We had reached a phase in our life that is pretty typical, I think, where you start going to a whole bunch of weddings because all your friends are getting married. So it just seemed like about every other month we were going to someone’s wedding. You know, [there were] a lot of same-gender marriages in the mix, and they were always great. And I think the fact that my family was very kind of marriage-focused in that all my siblings were either married or clearly going to get married, like it kind of meant a lot to both my side of the family and to his [Aaron’s] side of the family to really just have that definition of our relationship too. Like, this isn’t just a boyfriend, this isn’t just my roommate, it’s equivalent to anybody else’s marriage. So we planned a wedding. Honestly, in 2002, I don’t think it was even on anybody’s radar that marriage was even gonna become legal anytime soon. So it wasn’t even a matter of like, “Oh, we should wait” or anything. It was like, “well, are we doing it or not doing it?” We had a big wedding. I think you were there, weren’t you?

Jolie Smith 10:52

I think I was—

PS 10:53

What year were you born?

Jolie Smith 10:55

Yeah, I was born in 2001. So I’m sure I was there being held [by my parents]. 

PS 11:00

I remember the night before we got married, this kind of family friend of ours had this beach house on the beach in Provincetown. And so we had just a social evening there. Everybody just hanging out. And it was actually really nice, because everyone had kind of just arrived in town. And I do remember your sister Kallia being the super charming little toddler that everybody was just totally enamored with, with her little curls and little cheeks and she was so cute and sweet, I remember. So yeah we had a wedding, it was in Provincetown at the Unitarian Church there. A friend of ours did the ceremony for us. My whole family came: all my siblings, Mom and Dad, everybody brought their kids and everything. Almost Aaron’s whole family came: his mom and dad, his siblings all came. His sister in law was super pregnant with his nephew, so couldn’t travel. But other than her, everybody was there, which was awesome. I would say in the six months or so leading up to our wedding, we were not sure if Aaron’s mom was gonna come or not. Because she is super, super religious. And I think at first, she kind of didn’t approve. She didn’t ever say anything to me about it or anything. But there were just rumblings like, “oh, we’re not sure if Aaron’s mom’s gonna come.” And she came in the end. And she was awesome. And I think that that day was pretty transformational for her: just kind of being there for the ceremony and having all of our family there. And I think that it was just unfamiliar for her up until then. Plus, she was very against alcohol as well. And we had an open bar at our reception. [laughs]

Jolie Smith 13:26

I love it. But I’m glad everyone was there.

PS 13:30

Yeah. Oh, so I’ll just say, I think we didn’t even really give the non-legally recognizable part, even too much of a thought, because it was clearly recognized by all our friends and family and clearly recognized by our church. And so the legal thing was like, “well, that kind of sucks.” But it kind of was what it was. So, I can just tell you about then how the legal stuff progressed, because it got really messy for a while. So, shortly after we got married, states started passing different civil union laws and domestic partnership laws and it was very patchwork state by state. So we had a registered domestic partnership in Wisconsin when that became a thing. We had to go to the courthouse and sign these documents saying we were registered domestic partners. At some point, I got domestic partner benefits like health insurance at work, which was kind of a thing.

Massachusetts started legally recognizing marriages in 2004. But pretty shortly thereafter, there was this federal law passed called the Defense of Marriage Act that [made it so that] states did not have to recognize marriages from other states. So it’s pretty clear that we could have gotten a legal marriage in Massachusetts, but it would not have meant anything in Wisconsin. So it was not until we were adopting Dustin that then we decided like, “you know what, let’s get a Massachusetts marriage license anyway.” Because anything we can do to solidify our relationship legally, just for Dustin’s sake, let’s do it. So yeah, one Thanksgiving, I think we were visiting Gramma and Grampa [his parents, in Massachusetts], and they lived right next door to the town hall in Reading [a town in Massachusetts] and so we just went over there and got a marriage license. And then we walked down the street to Gramma and Grampa’s church and their minister signed it for us. So right about the same time we adopted Dustin, I had to adopt him as a single parent, because Wisconsin wasn’t allowing two people of the same gender to adopt together. So I adopted him as a single parent, purely for practical reasons—I had good health insurance, and he could be on my health insurance then. And that’s why we gave him Aaron’s last name, feeling like,“well, probably no one would ever question Aaron’s status, then, if he had the same last name.” And then we had to go back to court to do a legal guardianship for Aaron so that he had legal guardianship of Dustin as well. And then we adopted Taylor, me as a single parent, and we had to go back to court and get a legal guardianship for Taylor. And then [it was] the same thing again, when we adopted Caden and Ryan: I adopted them as a single parent, and then we had to go to court again to get a legal guardianship for them. At all of our adoptions, I made it clear in a statement to the judge that we intended to co-parent and we considered Aaron to be a fully equal parent, even though the state didn’t recognize it. So I felt at least that was somehow part of the court record. 

[Son comes into the room and asks a question] No, go ask Aaron. Close the door. I’m used to it [being interrupted] now that I do all my work meetings from home, or I was, not anymore, but for that long stretch, I just got used to like, [saying] “get out.” 

So then, I guess then the final step was finally that Supreme Court ruling in 2015. Once every state had to have equal marriage rights by Supreme Court order. Then suddenly, everything then was fine right after that. Suddenly our Massachusetts marriage was legal. Suddenly, we went to court one final time and did a step parent adoption, where Aaron legally adopted all the kids because he was married to me who was their legal parent, so weird, but that’s the way we had to do it. And actually, it was a little annoying, because to do that, we had to have a whole other home study by a foster care licensing agency, to make sure Aaron was a “fit parent.” to adopt children. It was ridiculous, but what’s nice is that then all of their birth certificates have now been re-issued with both of our names on them, which is awesome. Just like they were born to us, naturally. So, that was kind of our whole legal marriage journey. And it got complicated there for a while. But there’s such economic things too. As soon as our marriage was recognized, Aaron could be on my health insurance and health insurance is no small thing. But at the same time, suddenly, the way our taxes worked out, we had to actually pay a lot more in taxes as a married couple than we did as two single people filing separately. Like so weird. And you can just ask Kathy [his sister, who works for a tax preparation services company] why that would be because I have no idea.

Jolie Smith 20:04

I might do that.

Yeah, wow. And it sounds like all of that behind the scenes legal stuff—a lot of people… I certainly did not know that the process was that complicated before the 2015 Supreme Court decision.

PS 20:21

And I remember too, there were things that made no sense, but it was just kind of the way things were. So we had Dustin and Taylor in foster care before we adopted them. And when it came time that we were able to adopt them, the state contracted with a private adoption agency to do our adoption home study, and it was Lutheran Social Services. So they did our home study, and we adopted them. And that was great. And after those two, we were thinking we might want to have another kid. And we weren’t sure if we wanted to go through the whole foster care journey again. So we had contacted Lutheran Social Services that had done our adoption home study, because they did private adoptions as well, like, “oh, we’re just interested in exploring the option of adoption.” And they were like, “Oh, well, we only work with legally married couples.” And we weren’t legally married. And we’re like, “oh, but you just did our home study, like you’ve already worked with us.” And they’re like, “oh, but that was contracted through the state, so we had to. But just for our private adoptions, we only work with legal—legally married couples.” So, they wouldn’t work with us to do an adoption, even though they just had worked with us to do an adoption. I remember talking to the social worker over the phone like, “you realize this makes no sense, right?” Somehow your agency is fine to place kids in foster care, with couples that aren’t legally married, but somehow, newborn infants, you are not okay with doing that with. That is not only weird but kind of hypocritical too. 

Jolie Smith 22:25

Yeah, fully, that is crazy.

So with the 2015 Supreme Court decision, I know you had already gone through many marriages and legal things. So you had said that you didn’t think that made a big difference in your mind. So did you feel anything different when that decision—

PS 22:53

Oh yeah. No, that was a super joyful day. And I would say, for me at least, pretty unexpected. I mean, we knew that the Obergefell v. Hodges case was before the Supreme Court, and we knew that a decision was expected that day. I really don’t think anybody expected the ruling to be what it was: just granting equal marriage rights in all fifty states. There was thought that it might just strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, which had said that states don’t have to recognize marriages from other states. So it was a super, in my mind at least, unexpected ruling, but yeah, super joyful. Because at that point it just felt like this long journey that so many people fought so many years for that to happen. And just thinking about all the people and all the civil rights struggles before that, to me, it all kind of led up to that. And then yeah, with one court ruling, it was done and settled.

Jolie Smith 24:15

Yeah. Have you or do you ever worry that any of those rights will be repealed or do you feel confident in—

PS 24:28

I feel cautiously confident. I think that the last four years of politics in our nation has kind of shown me anything’s possible. So you definitely can’t get complacent, thinking like, “oh, that would never happen” because so many things we would think would never have happened have happened in the last four years. But I feel the nation has moved pretty quickly in a progressive direction on this issue. I think probably everybody in America has a friend and a relative who’s gay and in a same-sex marriage, or part of a gay family. I just think that there really isn’t a widespread desire to roll that back.

Jolie Smith 25:32

Yeah, I definitely agree. And even when I was doing just a little bit of research for this interview, I was thinking about how 2015 is only— that was only six years ago. And to me, it just feels like I don’t really remember the time before that ruling. So it’s pretty cool to hear how different—

PS 25:52

Yeah

Jolie Smith 25:53

Your coming out [was] versus how it is now.

PS 25:57

Yeah, on this particular issue, I just feel like the world moved pretty quick. And I think that just had to do with everybody knowing somebody personally who is affected. Because then I feel like you kind of have to grapple with it. And once you grapple with it, you kind of see what the kind and just position on the matter is. So yeah, I don’t think that would be ever rolled back. I think that it could be minor legal things. Already, there’s a lot of laws about religion, kind of disguised as religious freedom laws. For example, adoption agencies should have the right to not work with gay couples or things like that. But I think as far as legal marriage rights, I feel they’re pretty secure. But I’ll never say never.

Jolie Smith 27:15

All right. Well, that’s all the questions I have, unless you want to say anything else?

PS 27:20

I don’t think so. 

Jolie Smith 27:23

Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story.

Research:

In 2004, 60% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. By contrast, in 2019, the same poll showed that 61% of Americans support same-sex marriage. Additionally, a majority of Protestants and Catholics also now support gay marriage while they did not in 2004 (Pew Research, 2019). Public opinion has changed quickly, as have same-sex marriage laws; in the span of eleven years, gay marriage became legal in all fifty states (Lopez, 2015). 

Massachusetts, where PS lived in his early adult life, was the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004 through its state supreme court. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states’ bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore legalizing it in all fifty states. The majority opinion drew upon the fact that same-sex couples deserved the same rights, such as joint tax filing, as heterosexual couples (Lopez, 2015). 

In 2016, LGBT adoption was made legal in all fifty states. Studies in the Review of Research Prepared for American Sociological Association Amicus Brief found that children of same-sex couples are just as academically successful, cognitively developed, and mentally healthy as children from heterosexual couples. Despite this, some states still had bans on same-sex adoption until 2016 (Adoption Network, 2020). 

Bibliography:

“Changing Attitudes on Same-Sex Marriage.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, Pew Research Center, 14 May 2019, www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/. 

Lopez, German. “Same-Sex Marriage in the US, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 26 June 2015, www.vox.com/2015/6/26/18093652/same-sex-marriage. 

“Same-Sex Adoption: Adoption Network: Adoption Network.” Adoption Network, 18 Dec. 2020, adoptionnetwork.com/knowledge-hub/types-of-adoption-options/same-sex-adoption/. 

Follow-Up Commentary: 

The interviewee, PS, approved the transcript on March 25, 2021. No changes were requested. 

Interview Technology and Process:

This interview was recorded over Zoom, as PS lives in Oshkosh, WI and I am living in Harrisonburg, VA. The meeting was recorded and the audio file was converted and saved as an mp3 file. I used Otter.ai to transcribe the interview, then edited the transcript manually.

Transcription Process:

The transcription process was conducted in accordance with the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research Transcription Style Guide. The interview was preliminarily transcribed by Otter.ai, through which it was formatted with name labels, time markings, and double spaces, as instructed on pages 10-12 of the Style Guide. I then edited the transcript myself: the first time, I corrected “speaker assignment” mistakes from Otter.ai and clarified words Otter.ai could not understand; the second time, I corrected spelling and punctuation of the sentences; the third time, I omitted “pause filler” words such as “like” and “um” and reflexive phrases such as “you know,” with some exceptions, such as when it added meaning or style to the sentence. The last time I edited the transcript, I added brackets to add needed context in the form of editorial insertions, as outlined by the Style Guide. Lastly, I sent the transcript to PS to review and edit, and he approved it and did not request any changes.